The Cubicle Adventures
by Merridian
Summary: Imagine an Evangelion universe without the biomechanical robots or entry plugs. Imagine if the biblical references didn't involve massive aliens. Imagine if everything was restricted to something even more confining than a plug suit: the cubicle.
1. Monday

**Disclaimer:** I don't own NGE, nor anything related to it. Nor do I own Iron Maiden, Tristania, or any other bands talked about in this story. They all exist, but I don't own them—just some of their albums. And Pepsi Co. owns Dr. Pepper, not me. Ruby Tuesday's is owned by someone other than myself.

**Author's Note: **I got this idea while I tried to read the first volume of _Neon Genesis: Evangelion—Angelic Days_ while watching the movie _Office Space_. This will probably end up being one of those stories I look at in a few months and wonder what the hell I was thinking, but hey… It's lighthearted. And besides, with my 'serious' Eva fic drawing to its cataclysmic conclusion, I need something lighthearted.

And I bear no ill towards anyone who works in an office environment. I bear no prejudices against engineers, marketers, or anyone in any other division. Just to be clear.

Now… Let's pretend that the Evas don't exist. Let's pretend that the 'Children' are in their early to mid twenties, but everyone else's age hasn't changed, respectively. Let's pretend that they all work at a corporate office. And let's pretend that cubicles are a way of life (though for some of us, that isn't pretending…).

And the first scene doesn't take place on Monday. The time is irrelevant for the first scene—it's like an intro.

Now, enjoy…

* * *

**Chapter 1: Monday

* * *

**"So yeah… it sucks." Shinji flopped his head back onto the couch, closing his eyes. "I. Hate. My. Job." 

The blonde psychiatrist re-crossed her legs. "I can understand why you hate it," she began, her cool voice acting like a summer's breeze blowing across a meadow. If there was anything about her that could get Shinji to relax, it was that wonderful voice of hers. "But I want you to describe your hate." She continued. "I want you to specifically point out what it is that you dislike about your job."

Shinji opened his eyes, meeting the softened grey of the ceiling. "Well," he began, "where should I begin?"

The woman shrugged, and out of the corner of his eye, he spied her eyes drifting across his body. He found it kind of awkward, really. It wasn't the age difference; she was what, thirty three? He was twenty four. It wasn't like she didn't have the right to size him up.

He pulled his head back to look at her, at which point her gaze snapped to his eyes. "Let's see," he began again, "How about the office—cubicle, rather?" He asked himself. "There is no color. There is only the white of the walls in the corridors, and the grey of the walls of the cubicle. Do you know what a cubicle is, doctor?" Her silent gaze only begged him to continue. It was rare he spoke this much during a session. "A cubicle," he stated, "Is a four-walled prison for your mind. It is a cell of anti-creativity. Any individual thoughts and epiphanies are horribly destroyed when inside the grey pain box that is the cubicle."

He paused for a moment, thinking absently. "And the walls are carpeted, just like the floor. It's kind of… freaky."

The doctor had moved her arm so that her elbow was on the armrest, her half-clenched fist resting on her cheek. Her eyes never left his as he outlined the description of his workplace environment.

When he got no response, Shinji continued. "And then there's the brilliant ideas from the big schmoes upstairs. Just the other day, I had finished this report for one of the projects—and guess what happened?" She raised her eyebrows politely. "The upper management decided that the old report forms weren't _good_ enough. So then I got the memo, and had to redo the **whole report **_after_ I had already sent it out." He sighed as he let his head fall back onto the couch.

She stared at him a moment, observing his actions while taking in his words. "Do you have a girlfriend, Shinji?"

"What?" he pulled his head back. "Oh, yeah. I mean, I dunno. I guess. Sort of."

"What's that mean?" She feigned a confused expression to get a response.

He sighed. "Well, she's abusive, and self-centered—egotistical does nothing to even begin to describe her—and well, I just don't… I dunno… like her, I guess. I mean, she's great an' all, but… You know, don't you?"

She nodded, a light smile tracing her lips. "Of course."

Shinji nodded in silence for awhile, before noticing the clock. He sighed again. "Well… I guess that's the end of our session today." He said.

She peered at the twelve-numbered face on the wall. "Yes, I suppose it is. Same time next week, I'm sure?"

He shrugged half-heartedly as he stood. "I guess."

"So long, Shinji. You're making progress, if it's any consolation."

Shinji nodded. "Thanks, that's good to know. See you later Doctor Akagi."

* * *

MONDAY; 8:30 AM 

**RUSH HOUR**

**---**

Shinji hated rush hour traffic. Part of him beat himself for continuously getting up just in time to make it out the door. That's what any sane person would be doing; beating himself up for arousing from sleep so late.

Part of him didn't care.

The part of him that didn't care was part of the reason he was seeing a psychiatrist. His "girlfriend" said he was depressed, and forced him to see an (albeit attractive) shrink to 'open up to his personal feelings'.

What a load of crap.

---

"Kensuke?"

"Yes Toji?"

"Why do we always carpool? I mean, it's kinda gay."

"I don't have to save you money, you know. With gas prices where they are, I could leave you to suffer through the economic hardships like the rest of us."

"Oh." The passenger thought for a moment, gazing idly out the window. "…Thanks, I guess."

---

"Watch where you're g—oh, you son of a bitch!" Shigeru slammed his palm into the steering wheel as a blue sedan suddenly pulled into the space in front of him. "BASTARD!"

"Dude, calm down man. It isn't that bad." Makoto's whitened knuckles gripped the door handle as Shigeru crept up on the sedan and slammed on his breaks. "Just don't—_jezus—_don't hit the guy!"

The driver sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Besides, it's probably someone we work with." He said it with a slight smirk.

Makoto finished his colleague's thought. "…Like one of those weirdoes in the engineering department."

They both started laughing.

---

Shinji barely scraped into the spot in front of the red coup, cutting the guy off. In all honesty, he didn't mean to come that close to the guy's fender, but he really didn't have a choice. His lane was ending due to construction, so he needed to go _somewhere_.

It wasn't _his_ fault the guy wouldn't let him in.

It wasn't _his_ fault the guy was being an ass.

He couldn't say that too loud, though. The driver of the sedan was probably someone he worked with.

"…Like one of those marketing department weirdoes…" he mused to himself, smirking.

---

Maya Ibuki's trip to work was blissful.

But then, everything had been blissful since the doctor ordered her to take one little yellow pill every morning before work.

He had also told her not to drive when she took the pill.

Oh well.

* * *

MONDAY; 9:15 AM 

**THE OFFICE**

**---**

Shinji took a minute to stare at the concrete structure before him. It was depressingly mundane; a cement walkway leading up to glass double doors. It was tall enough to encompass five floors, three stairwells, and one elevator shaft. The front of the building was a grid of concrete, filled in with glass panels that reflected the surrounding office park. The rest of the buildings in the park were exactly the same as the one which he now stood in front of, but they had different logos sprawled on their double doors.

This building's logo happened to be the name of the company written in the Veranda type face.

Nerv Technologies, Inc.

Shinji blinked, before opening the door and starting his official business day.

---

The walk to the cubicle always instilled dread in Shinji Ikari. He never knew why, it was just one of those things that deserved to be dreaded. Maybe he feared getting pulled over and talked to by a supervisor. Maybe he feared finding someone else occupying his cubicle. Maybe he was just liked dreading things.

Maybe that was another reason he was seeing a psychiatrist.

In the swift four minutes it took to get to his mundane hovel among the generic, nothing extraordinary happened. He wasn't pulled aside by a supervisor, and this cubicle was still his own. This time, his fears were unfounded, but there would always be a next time.

Setting his briefcase underneath the desk, Shinji reluctantly pulled several papers out of it, before booting up his computer. He tiredly laid the sheets on his desk, staring at them for several minutes before turning once again to his computer.

ERROR IN BOOT PROCESS. INSERT BOOT DISK AND RESTART.

"What the hell?" Shinji's eyes narrowed. His fingers hit the classic 'control, alt, delete,' keys in an attempt to fix it. He knew it wouldn't, but there was no harm in hoping.

ERROR IN BOOT PROCESS. INSERT BOOT DISK AND RESTART.

The message remained; glaring at him from the other side of the black screen. The computer was laughing at him. Shaking his head, he reached down to hit the power button, before restarting the machine again.

"Piece of—"

ERROR IN BOOT PROCESS. INSERT BOOT DISK AND RESTART.

"—shit."

He took a deep breath, trying to quell the anger that was starting to rise up in his throat. Closing his eyes, he went to the happy place that the beautiful doctor had instructed him to go to when angry. The beautiful doctor would probably kill him if she knew where that place was.

Just as he achieved his goal, a song wafted into his ears from someplace overhead.

"_At the gates and the walls of Montségur, blood on the stones of the citadel!_"

He did not need Iron Maiden at this hour of the morning.

"Rei," he started to stand, peering over the wall of his cubicle to stare down at an azure-haired young woman. Red eyes flashed up to greet him. "Could you turn down…" Her gaze bored holes through his eyes, it was so intense. "Um…" He trailed off, deciding that it was probably better to let the melodies of eighties metal bands permeate the air than face angering the silent workaholic. He had never seen her angry, but that was probably a good thing.

"Never mind," he said, sitting back down and staring at the cubicle wall for awhile.

---

"Yeah, but it's always the silent ones that snap." Kensuke and Toji were engaged in a conversation when Shinji arrived. Kensuke continued as Shinji poked his head into their shared cubicle. "One day, everything seems fine. The next—" he pulled his hand into the shape of a pistol and aimed for Shinji's head. "—it's bang! bang! bang! and everyone's a goner."

Toji nodded in agreement. "I've still got my money on Shigeru though. You know, da guy over in marketing? He's crazy as hell."

"Crazy's one thing. Crazy can mean a good worker. But they're usually too uptight to actually start sending rounds into anyone." The spectacled cohort responded. "I dunno. I still think that Ayanami is silently planning to overthrow the management. She works hard enough to avoid suspicion, but there's still that dangerous glint in her eyes when you annoy her. I bet she's packin heat even as we speak."

Toji shrugged, looking at Shinji. "Hey, Shin-man. What's goin' on?" He greeted his friend with the nod of his head.

"Yeah, what brings you to our humble programming hospice, man?" Kensuke pushed his glasses back up his nose where they had started to slide.

Shinji frowned. "My computer's acting flaky."

"What's it doing?" The smaller man swung his swivel chair to face him.

"It says I need to insert a boot disk to continue booting." He said. "But I don't have a boot disk."

Kensuke frowned. "Go talk to management." He shrugged. "I hate messing with these machines. They might get you a new box."

Shinji nodded. "Alright."

As he walked off, Toji returned to the conversation with the same gusto. "Ayanami? Well, maybe… I could see her cappin' a few mugs."

---

"Um," Hikari Hiroki, the project manager blinked. "Shinji, that really isn't my department of specialty." She said. "You should probably go to the tech manager for that booting issue."

Shinji sighed as he stepped out of her office.

---

"Ms. Katsuragi?" Shinji tentatively knocked on the door to the Tech Manager's door. He didn't much care for the overly flirtatious older woman. The fact of the matter was that she intimidated him—her close proximity during conversations was one thing, but when she damn near molested him after he had come down to report a bug in the engineering server, Shinji started to want to keep his distance.

The door opened with a grandiose movement worthy of her reputation. "Shinji! How nice of you to drop by!" Shinji's involuntary eye twitch must have gone unnoticed by the woman. "Come in!"

He stepped inside, letting his gaze wander about the room. The walls were the same white as the rest of the building, but they at least had some pictures of landscapes adorning them as to divert attention away from their bleak sense of mundane.

"Have you been seeing that doctor I referred you to?" She asked suddenly, closing the door. "Akagi, the psychiatrist." She motioned for him to sit down.

He nodded, taking the offered seat. "Ms. Kats—"

"And how have those sessions with her been?" She smiled slightly, a mischievous glint in her eye. "I trust you've been having _fun_ with her…"

Shinji feigned a shocked expression. He had expected this, but he still didn't want to hear it. "Ms. Katsuragi!"

"Oh please, Shinji. I told you to call me Misato when we're not at work."

"But we _are_ at work—"

She leaned on the desk, the neck of her shirt falling down to give Shinji a clear view of a substantial amount of cleavage. "We don't _have_ to be," she whispered. "When are you going to leave that girlfriend of yours to sleep with a _real_ woman?"

Shinji pushed his chair away from the desk a few inches. "Misato—Ms. Katsuragi," he said, "I came down here because my computer's not working." Finally, he managed to complete a sentence without getting cut off. "It says there's a boot disk error when I start it up—but I don't know where the boot disks are. I went to Ms. Hiroki, and she said to come to you."

Misato frowned, her business mode kicking into gear. "I'm pretty sure they're all in the big storage compartments near Marketing." She replied, thinking. "You'll probably have to go down there."

Shinji nodded as he stood. "Alright, thank you. That's all I needed."

"Have a good day," Misato winked as he walked out the door.

---

"Hey, aren't you one of the guys from Engineering?" Shigeru happened to spot Shinji as he roamed the Marketing corridors.

"Um," he replied, staring at him for a moment. "Yes."

Shigeru chuckled. "What brings you to Marketing?"

"I've been having problems with my machine, and I was told that the boot disks were with the rest of the spare computer hardware down here, in the storage compartments." He frowned. "But I haven't seen any storage compartments at all."

Shigeru made no attempt to suppress his laugh. "Man, what information are you goin' on? All that computer equipment was thrown out last year, when we had to make room for the new employees."

Shinji frowned deeper. "Oh."

---

"What?" Misato frowned. "Oh, that's right, I remember now." She nodded, returning eye contact to Shinji. "Yes. We had a bunch of promising Marketing recruits, and we didn't have any space. The hardware was old, and we had anticipated replacing our machines anyway, so we just got rid of it all."

"But what about the boot disks?"

Misato shrugged. "Probably ditched along with everything else." She looked around the office, thinking. "Shinji, your machine has probably blown its brains out anyhow—weren't you complaining about a bug a few weeks ago?"

"Yes, but that was on the server. My machine didn't get hit, I didn't think."

"Yeah, but still. You might have gotten hit." She shrugged. "Ahh well, just sit tight while we replace your box."

His eyes widened. "But I have work to do, Ms. Katsuragi!"

Misato frowned. "Reports?"

"Yeah."

"Here." She tossed him a pad of paper and leaned back in her chair. "You have pens, right?"

---

"Hey, Shin-man!" Toji peeked his head around the corner of Shinji's cubicle. "You up for lunch? Me an' Kensuke are gettin' outta 'dis joint for some food."

Shinji shrugged. "Is anyone else coming?"

"Up to you, man."

Shinji stood up and peeked over the top of his cubicle at Rei. Iron Maiden was still pouring out of her speakers. "Hey Rei, you up for lunch?"

She kept her gaze glued to her computer screen as she continued typing. "I brought my own."

Shinji frowned and turned to the other side. "Kaworu, you hungry?"

The grey haired albino looked up at him with his eerie red eyes. "Yes, Shinji. Is it lunchtime already?"

Shinji nodded. "Yeah. Aida, Suzaharra, and I are going out someplace to eat. You want to come?"

Kaworu shrugged. "It works for me."

* * *

MONDAY; 12:30 PM 

**RUBY TEUSDAY'S**

---

"So I pretty much wasted the whole morning." Shinji concluded.

Kensuke frowned. "So what are you using for your computer?"

"A yellow pad of paper."

Toji blinked. "Dat sucks." Kaworu sipped his Dr. Pepper, staring at Shinji from over the lip of the glass. "It sounds like you need ta bust some heads, man." Toji continued, "I wouldn't stand for that kinda disrespect."

Shinji frowned. "Yeah, but I dunno guys. I mean, sure it's a pain, and sure I can't get work done, but it's the company's problem—not mine. Right?"

Kensuke shrugged. "Unless management decides to blame you for work neglect."

"Yeah, but management barely looks at us to begin with—just look at how much work we actually _do_ in a day." Shinji rebuked. "We haven't gotten fired yet." He shrugged. "I mean, sure, I actually get some work done, but all the stuff I do is trivial report crap. I'm not really a software guy like you guys. The bullshit they give me is all secretarial work."

Toji's brow furrowed in concentration. "But didn't they give you dat one project a few weeks ago? You know, dat—oh what was it?"

Shinji quirked an eyebrow. "You mean the thing for Global Enterprises?"

"Dat was da client, right?"

Shinji closed his eyes. "Yes, Toji."

"Yeah, dat sounds right." Toji nodded. "You know da one I'm talkin' 'bout."

"Sure, I got that project." Shinji said, "But I didn't do any _work_ on it. Horaki took me off the project the second day and gave me a stack of memos to type up, then said that she needed a bunch of other things filed. By the time I finished all that, the project had been finished and a report needed to be done. Guess who got to write that?" The stares around him verified that they already knew. "Do I look like a freaking secretary?"

Kensuke glanced at Kaworu. "Hey Nagisa, what do you think of all this?"

Kaworu set his glass down and looked at them thoughtfully. "I'd have to say that it's pretty insulting to have an engineer doing a secretary's job." He said. "But I also have to say that it is the company who is suffering the most, not Shinji."

Shinji nodded as his friend spoke. "Yeah, I guess you're right. While they're wasting my skills typing pointless documents that no one reads, they're losing precious man-hours that could be spent on something important."

The others nodded in agreement, and a silence descended as they awaited the bill.

Shinji shook his head and sighed. "Man, I really hate that place. If I had work ethic, I think I'd care about the direction the company was headed—but you know what? I can't bring myself to really feel bad if Nerv Technologies Incorporated went belly-up in the near future."

The others looked at him. "Yeah, I'm not sure if I would care, either. My skills are pretty good, so I doubt I'd have trouble getting another job." Kensuke said, after a moment of thought.

"I wouldn't have any trouble either." Kaworu added.

Toji nodded. "Yeah, neither would I."

"Then why do we stay here?" Shinji asked, his voice rising in volume slightly. "If we could all get different jobs, why do we bother with this worthless company?"

Kaworu smiled knowingly. "Human beings do not particularly enjoy change. Should we all get new jobs, we would all have a different office to get to, different tasks to perform as employees; everything would change for us."

"Are you saying that some part of me enjoys this job?"

Kaworu chuckled. "If some part of you did not enjoy it, you would not come, correct?"

Shinji's eyes lit up in realization. "Yeah… I guess. This place at least pays my decently, so I really can't complain."

"Besides," Kaworu continued, "What makes you think that other offices are any different from our current one?"

Kensuke winced. "Ooh, good point."

---

"This is an injustice." Shigeru stared at the wall his desk faced. "You realize that, right? It's a complete injustice."

Makoto leaned back in his chair, head dangling off the back of the short backrest. "You say that every day, Shig."

"Well maybe I'm not saying it loud enough, since we're all still here."

"Or just not to the right people." Makoto added offhand.

Shigeru shrugged. "Either way, something's way off." He continued, "I mean, look at this. Three people crammed into an office that was built to house one." He crossed his arms and furrowed his brows at the wall. "This isn't even a corner office! If they were going to cram us in here, the least they could do is give us a corner office!"

Makoto suppressed a chuckle. "What difference would that make? You still wouldn't get to see out the window." He said. "Knowing the management around here, they'd force you to have your back to both of the windows."

Shigeru grunted. "Yeah, whatever." He went silent as he laid his hands on the armrests of the swivel chair, staring at his powerless monitor.

Silence reigned supreme for awhile, as Makoto continued his incessant typing. Maya was in the corner silently working on whatever she was working on. Shigeru just sat there staring at the monitor he had turned off before he had gone to lunch.

It still hadn't been turned on.

* * *

MONDAY; 2:14 PM 

**THE OFFICE**

---

Soft music continued to float down from the over the wall of Shinji's neighboring cubicle.

"_I will hope, my soul will fly, so I will live—Forever! Heart will die, my soul will fly, and I will live—Forever!" _

"Rei," Shinji peered over the wall of Rei's cubicle, looking down at her again.

"Yes, Ikari?" She hadn't torn her eyes from her computer screen.

He was about to ask her to turn the music down, but a different thought occurred to him instead. "Is Iron Maiden your favorite band?"

Her typing stopped abruptly, and she shifted her gaze to stare at him. "No." she said. "But they are favorable."

Shinji raised an eyebrow. "Who do you typically listen to the most, then?"

"Are you asking who my favorite musical artist is?"

Shinji nodded. "Yes, I am."

"What business is it of yours?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I just have an idea, and it would be nice if I had your input."

Her eyes shifted from his, glancing toward the floor and resting on her wastebasket. Shinji knew then that she was thinking something over.

"Tristania," she finally stated, returning her gaze to him. "Is that all?"

Shinji frowned, having never heard of this band before. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "That's all." He sat back down in his swivel chair, staring down at the legal pad in front of him.

_Fact: Overhead intercom system is controlled from a general utilities server._

_Fact: It can therefore be hacked into and controlled, just like the lights, security system, and other miscellaneous utilities._

_Plan: Hack into server, wreak havoc. _

Shinji smiled to himself, ever so slightly. If he could get into the server, he could unleash a cacophony of distorted music over the speakers of the workplace, driving everyone crazy. And he could mess with the lights, just to add effect. He could probably do it from a remote, isolated location, and send his signal through one or two different networks just to make it harder to track.

His plan wouldn't cause any damage, it would just be a minor, temporary inconvenience.

---

"Hey Shin-man."

Shinji turned to Toji as he read over his notes. Then he turned back to the water cooler as he finished filling his cup. "Yes?"

"What's a Tristania?" He asked.

"It's a band, I think." Kensuke replied for him.

Shinji looked at him. "You've heard of them?"

Kensuke shrugged. "Heard _of_ them, but I haven't listened to any of their music, really. I think they're a death metal group."

Shinji frowned. "Oh."

Kensuke continued. "You'd have to talk to Makoto over in Marketing if you want to know more about them." He said. "He's a huge metal head. Get him started on music and he'll blow you away with the crazy stuff he knows. Arcturus, Therion, Dimmu Borgir, Opeth… He knows all those hard bands and probably has all their albums. He's even into the stuff from the 1980's, like Grim Reaper and Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister and stuff. And I'm not even mentioning all the bands I had never heard of."

Toji and Shinji stared at him wide-eyed.

Then Toji spoke up. "Looks like dis Makoto guy's got an apprentice."

Kensuke wrinkled his nose. "Nah, if anyone's his apprentice, it would be Ayanami. Have you listened to what she's always got playing? It's some pretty crazy stuff."

Shinji nodded. "Yeah, today it was Iron Maiden. Yesterday it was something I don't think I ever want to hear again."

"Do you know who it was?"

Shinji shrugged. "She said it was… I can't remember. Nighttime Dead? No that wasn't it…"

"Nokturnal Mortum?" Kensuke raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged again. "It sounds right, but I still can't remember. Probably." He said. "All I know is that they were really creepy. It kinda scared me."

Kensuke nodded ambivalently. "Yeah, some of that stuff is pretty harsh. It takes a certain mentality to embrace it fully."

Toji stared at him oddly. "What is it, Zen or somethin'?"

Kensuke shrugged. "No, I'd call it something more like…"

He trailed off as Rei approached the water cooler, attracting the gazes of Toji, Kensuke, and Shinji as she poured herself a cup of the liquid. Pausing a moment to notice that she was the center of attention, she blinked, and returned to her cubicle the way she came.

"…Dementia." He finished, staring after the girl with a blank expression.

---

"C-could you repeat that?" The spectacled Marketer squinted at him, trying to understand the other man.

Shinji repeated his question. "If, hypothetically, you wanted to drive everyone crazy with a particular genre of music, what band do you think would wreak the most chaos?"

Makoto frowned. "Well…" He leaned back in his chair, craning his neck. "I don't know, there are so many possibilities."

Shinji shrugged. "So give me one."

"Hmm… Opeth is pretty heavy, but they might be too melodic for what you're looking for. I'm guessing that you want something really grungy and heavy, right?" Shinji nodded. "Hmm… Well, Nokturnal Mortum _might_ work… They're pretty damn heavy. There's always—" he started to chuckle, "Cannibal Corpse…"

"Why are you laughing?"

"Because they're just hilarious. They're… They don't take themselves seriously, and they _know_ it. The whole band was created for a psychology project when they were in collage or something ridiculous." Makoto replied. "They just kept going because people actually _liked_ the stuff." He calmed himself down. "Um… Dimmu Borgir is pretty damn heavy as well."

"What about Grim Reaper?" Shinji cut in.

Makoto looked at him, shaking his head. "I guess, if that's what you're looking for. They aren't heavy like the others—they're 80's metal, like Twisted Sister and Iron Maiden and… well, early Metallica fits in that genre too." He took a breath. "No, if you want deep, heavy, satanic stuff, your best bet would be something like Nokturnal Mortum or—shit, why didn't I think of this before?—Tsjuder."

Shinji stared at him blankly. "…Tsjuder?"

Makoto shrugged. "Hey, if you want grungy, it doesn't get much grungier than Tsjuder. They're barely a step above noise and hoarse vocals. I get burn you a copy right now, if you want."

A smirk tugged at Shinji's lips. "Yeah… that'd be nice. I'd like a copy, if you could. Thanks."

---

"Didja get it?" Toji peeked his head around the edge of his cubicle to look at Shinji as he approached.

Shinji just held up a CD with fresh handwriting on it. "Tsjuder, _Desert Northern Hell_. Makoto said it was barely above noise." He smiled. "Now we get to have some fun."

Kensuke grabbed the CD and threw it into his computer. "Now what did you want me to do? Hack into the P.A. system and play some of this stuff?" Shinji nodded and took a stance behind him, one hand on the desk and the other on the back of his friend's chair. Kensuke smiled as he was given the right-of-way. "I'm on it."

Kaworu walked by just as Kensuke broke into the system. Only a few more keystrokes and there'd be indecipherable Norwegian grunge blasting out of the overhead speakers in just about every department in the entire building.

This would be an experience to remember.

Except…

"What are you doing?" Kaworu's calm voice interrupted Kensuke and the others before the final process could be completed.

"What?"

"You've hacked into the utilities server, from what it looks like." Kaworu said. "Why?" He shrugged. In honesty, it made no difference to him, he was just curious.

"Oh," Shinji said, starting to explain. "We're gonna drive every department crazy by blasting Tsjuder over the P.A. system."

Kaworu smiled a melancholy grin. "Shinji, you're doing this out of spite, against the management?"

Shinji thought for a moment, before nodding. "Yeah. I suppose I am."

"Then you're targeting the wrong people." Kaworu said. "Most of the people working here are just like you; they aren't the ones you want to make angry."

Shinji's eyes widened as he said this, his entire thought process screeching to a cataclysmic halt.

Toji was the first to say something. "Y'know, da guy has a point."

Kensuke frowned.

Shinji frowned.

Toji shrugged.

"Save this weapon for a time when it is needed, friend. Then you can have it as a rallying cry for your troops." With that, Kaworu turned and continued on his path.

Kensuke's brow furrowed in confusion. "'Rallying cry for your troops'? What the hell does he mean by that? Is he insinuating an office revolution?"

Shinji shrugged dejectedly. "I dunno. He talks in riddles."

Their conversation was cut short as their manager found them. "Oh good, you're all together already. Here's your new project, guys." Horaki handed each of them a black notebook, almost three inches thick and filled with pages. "Well, it isn't really the project itself—that's going to come up in the conference tomorrow. Ten o'clock sharp; a new client's coming in with a big issue, and these are the preliminary summaries and stuff." She said. "Remember, ten o'clock. Be there! You guys are my best programmers."

With that, she walked away, leaving a rather confused trio behind her.

Shinji read the words off the title page. "'Project E'?"

Toji leafed through it loosely. "What da hell is dis?"

Kensuke threw his binder on the desk. "I dunno. Probably some government thing. We'll find out tomorrow."


	2. Tuesday

**Disclaimer: **I don't own NGE, Michael's Pub restaurant, Tristania, Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, Slipknot, Cradle of Filth, Genesis/Genesis members, Microsoft/Microsoft Windows/MS DOS, Linux, Dr. Pepper, et al.

All companies/products mentioned in this story belong to their owners, respectively, save for those invented by the author's imagination.

**Author's Note: **Wow… this seems to have been graciously accepted by you guys. Honestly, I expected it to fail miserably because the premise is just_ so damn bad_. This story has no point! And yet its popularity has been growing in just a _week_…. Amazing.

This has been co-written/co-edited by a friend of mine. Just about half

I'm planning on having my chapters be like days; where one chapter describes one day—except the opening scene of the chapter. I dunno, really; I guess I like opening these with therapy sessions.

Some of these 'adventures' are based on actual events, but the names, times, and places have been replaced with fictional creations. Yes, this sort of thing happens to us almost _every day_.

Now, on with the show…

* * *

**Chapter 2: Tuesday

* * *

**

"So that… that pretty much sums it—um," Shinji stopped immediately, feeling the hands settle on his shoulders. "Doctor, what are you do—"

"Sshh, Shinji." She whispered, right next to his ear. The hands deftly worked out the tension in his shoulders, letting his head fall back in a completely relaxed state. "I do this for all my patients."

"Y-you do?"

A sultry laughter echoed into his head. "Only the ones I think really _need_ it," she whispered back to him. "And trust me, Shinji," she continued, bringing her lips closer to his ear. "You _need it_."

"Mmm," he agreed, completely giving in to the seduction. He really had nothing to lose. "This is… nice…"

* * *

TUESDAY; 6:30 AM

**IKARI RESIDENCE **

---

"Ughh…" Shinji looked at his alarm clock, noticing it had yet to go off. He usually didn't stir until eight anyhow.

Then he noticed the arm across his chest.

Then the shoulder the arm was connected to.

Then the red mop of hair that was strewn about sheets, shoulder, and pillow.

"Asuka." His voice was barely audible, but full of disappointment. "Damnit…"

He started to get out of bed, hoping that he could get out of the house before the redhead awoke, only to be held firm by the arm that suddenly tightened around his chest.

"Is that disappointment I sense in your voice, Shinji?"

Hell.

"Why would I be disappointed, Asuka?" He turned his head to stare into the most menacing blue eyes on the planet.

* * *

TUESDAY; 7:12 AM

**RUSH HOUR**

---

Shinji nursed his injured shoulder as he kept up with traffic. Granted, he probably deserved the bruise on his chest, but it was a little much when she threw the lamp at him. Not to mention she was going to leave his apartment a wreck—or at least, it was a wreck when he left. Hopefully she'd be out before he got back.

He sighed and rested his head on the back of the driver's seat as his car came to a stop in the traffic. There was less of it today than normal, probably because he didn't usually hit the road until well after eight thirty or so. It was true that he hated the job, but given the alternative of this particular morning, he'd gladly take his cubicle over the burning inferno of the pissed-off woman that called herself his girlfriend.

---

"Hey jackass, get out of the damn way if you're gonna be so damn slow!" Shigeru slammed his horn again.

"Maybe you should let me drive to work." Makoto looked at his coworker worriedly. "You could die from being so stressed out."

Shigeru stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's just something I read in some magazine." He replied. "You know, stress can lead to bad cholesterol and heart attacks and stuff. Strokes… Aneurisms… Kidney failure… It's all related to stress."

"Ulcers!" Maya perked up from the back seat.

Makoto closed his eyes. "Yes, Maya. Ulcers too." He gazed out the window as the car stopped again. "The article was really interesting, talking about—"

"My aunt had an ulcer once." Maya suddenly said.

"Oh yeah?" Shigeru looked back at her in the rearview mirror.

"Yeah." She nodded. "It was kind of sad, really. She had to be hooked up to all sorts of tubes and machines and stuff."

Makoto frowned for being interrupted. "I don't think that was because of an ulcer, Maya." He said, turning to her from his seat in the front.

"How do _you_ know? Were you her doctor?" She asked indignantly.

He sat back with a 'sorry I asked' look dousing his features. "Jeez, sorry."

"That's interesting, Maya," Shigeru said, his gaze never leaving the woman in the back seat. "I didn't know ulcers were treated by being hooked up to machines."

Maya shook her head. "No, those machines weren't for ulcers. She had chronic pneumonia before she died." Makoto sighed in the front seat. "It just so happened that she also suffered from ulcers for most of her life, as well."

"Huh," Shigeru said.

They rode on in silence for awhile.

---

"_I only dream in black and white! I only dream 'cause I'm alive!"_

Iron Maiden poured out of the speakers of a rather boring looking beige sedan. Kaworu sat in the drivers seat, an intrigued smile gracing his mouth as he listened to a CD he had found on his desk the previous day. Someone had left an unmarked disk on his desk which he had found after returning from his lunch break, but he hadn't had a chance to find out what it was until had gotten home.

Now was the first time he was actually listening to it.

He nodded his head to the beat as he sat in his otherwise motionless car. There was only one thought in his mind at that moment, which he decided to voice aloud to the empty interior of the automobile.

"This song… _rocks_."

---

"Say, Makoto," Shigeru didn't look at his coworker, keeping his eyes focused on the road. Makoto's grunt signaled his attention. "Weren't you burning a bunch of CDs yesterday?"

Makoto nodded. "Yeah."

"What were they for?"

"Oh, just a little philanthropy on my part." He said, off hand.

Shigeru creased his brow in confusion. "Philanthropy? You?"

Makoto shrugged. "Sure. You know how religious fanatics spread their 'word of god' stuff to everyone who _doesn't _want it?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, I decided I could do the world a favor by doing just the opposite. Instead of getting into pointless conversations about music with people who seriously have _no idea_ what I'm talking about, I decided that it would be easier to educate them by letting them _listen_ to the music." He flashed a crazed smile. "The thought occurred to me after we had that conversation about Cradle of Filth during lunch." He squinted. "I _hate_ Cradle of Filth." He whispered to himself, clenching a dramatic fist.

Shigeru nodded. "But—how is that any different than shoving dogma down people's throats?"

"Easy;" Makoto replied, "It's their choice if they listen to the stuff or not. If they don't like it, they can throw it away without guilt."

"Ah."

* * *

TUESDAY; 7:58 AM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"Good morning!" The secretary cheerily chimed as Shinji strode through the lobby, heading for the bleak double-doors. In his mind, Shinji imagined that lobby-side of the doors would be what the Gates of Hell would look like when he saw them. Hell just wouldn't be Hell if the gates didn't resemble these doors—it was just a minor little thought that always occurred to him when he entered the office.

"Too late for that." He replied quickly, opening the Gates of Hell and stepping into the carpeted anti-paradise.

---

Shinji's worst fears seemed to have come true. He stared in shock at the figure of Rei Ayanami, her back to him, sitting calmly at her desk. No, at _his_ desk, which was now _hers._

The company had laid him off, and he hadn't been notified! They had already shifted the cubicle arrangements!

Panic broke out in Shinji's mind, beads of sweat forming on his brow as he stared at the woman blankly.

"Ikari?" Rei looked at him as she turned her chair. "Why are you staring at me?"

"Y-you're in my—my—" he stuttered to get words out. "You're in my cubicle." He whispered.

Her brow furrowed in a mixture of annoyance and confusion. "There has been no change in cubicle arrangements that I am aware of, Ikari. Your desk is over there." She nodded to the wall that her computer sat against.

He blinked. "Oh."

---

"You're here early, Shinji." Kaworu's melodic voice disturbed Shinji from his vague staring at the wall.

"Yeah." He sighed. "Well, you know… Asuka came over last night and never left."

Kaworu hummed his response. "You don't much get along with your girlfriend, do you?"

Shinji's teeth ground into themselves. "No, I don't. This morning she pushed me into a table, then on my way out she threw my favorite lamp at the back of my head." He rubbed his shoulder absently. "I probably pulled my shoulder when I tried to catch the blasted thing." He sighed, forlorn. "That was my best lamp; I _loved_ that thing…" he muttered.

Kaworu frowned as he entered his cubicle, looking over his wall at Shinji. "Why do you stay with her if you do not enjoy her company?"

Shinji shrugged. "I dunno. I mean, the sex is usually good—when she isn't ordering me around. But other than that…" he trailed off. "Maybe it's something like you said yesterday at lunch. You know, the whole 'human beings despise change' thing?"

Kaworu nodded. "That would make sense." He sat down and booted his machine up, saying nothing further on the subject.

---

"Ikari," Shinji looked up at Rei's head, which stared down at him from above the cubicle wall.

"Hi Rei." He mocked enthusiasm, putting on the sarcastic façade that he enjoyed writing memos by hand.

"Would it be acceptable for me to borrow your stapler?" She asked, ignoring his peculiar attitude. "Someone has taken mine without my permission."

"Sure Rei. Anything you need." He looked across his desk, peering at his hole punch and tape dispenser. "Um," he said. "Well, normally it's right…here…" he opened a few drawers in his desk, searching through the contents. "You know, that's funny." He said. "Mine's gone, too."

He stood up and looked over at Kaworu, Rei's crimson irises following his movements. "Hey Kaworu,"

The bored albino looked up at him. "Hello Shinji."

"Do you have a stapler?" he asked. "Both Rei's and mine are gone."

Kaworu frowned as he searched his desk. "I seem to have lost mine as well," he replied.

---

"Hey, do any of you have a stapler?" Shinji peeked his head around the cubicle wall to spot Toji and Kensuke's empty seats. "Oh that's right, you're not here yet."

He searched the desks, but found that neither of them had staplers either.

---

"Now that you say that, you're right. I'm missing mine as well." Horaki got up from her desk and stared at Shinji. "Sit tight for awhile; I'll take this to my supervisor. She should know what happened."

* * *

TUESDAY; 9:10 AM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"Hey Shinji," Kensuke peered around the corner into his cubicle. "You know what happened to my stapler?"

Shinji shrugged. "It seems that the entire department has gone stapler-less." He said. "Horaki is looking into it, but she hasn't gotten back to me about it."

"Oh."

---

"I dunno about Rei," Kensuke said. "She just seems… weird." He thought for a moment. "She's almost like an emotionless clone-person. I could see her having a whole bunch of bodies just floating around in a giant tube-thing, waiting to be revived and to have her memories transplanted if she died tomorrow."

Shinji blinked. "Um…"

"Well, you know." Kensuke looked back at him. "She's odd, is all I'm saying."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Shinji replied. "But still, I can't help it. She's beautiful, and deceptively independent. I like that."

Toji scratched his head. "You sure you're not jus' fallin' for da whole 'grass is greener on da other side' thing?"

Shinji shrugged. "I dunno. I could be. Asuka's driving me crazy. I might as well be a slave to her, the way she's been treating me."

"Well then get rid of her!" Kensuke exclaimed. "If you despise being with the woman _that_ much, then just stop spending time with her and end the relationship! You aren't living together yet, are you?"

Shinji shook his head. "No, fortunately. But I'm afraid of what would happen if I _did_ manage to end the whole thing."

Toji furrowed his brow. "Why?"

"Well, she's been getting kinda abusive lately…" he started. "It's kind of frightening to be in the same room with her, she's completely insane."

Kensuke frowned. "Hmm… this sounds like she might come after you if you try to get out of this. You're welcome to crash at my place until things cool down, if you want."

"Thanks, but I don't think _that's_ necessary." Shinji shook his head.

"Just a suggestion. I mean, you never know—she might just take a shot at you as you leave your house, or when you get into your car."

Shinji blinked. "If she owned a gun, I'm pretty sure more of us would already be dead."

Toji winced. "Yeah, he's got a point. Dat woman is crazy as hell."

There was a silence as they all sipped their coffee.

"I wonder what she sees in me." Shinji thought aloud.

Kensuke shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe she sees you as having a stable career—and paycheck. Maybe she sees you as the perfect house servant. Maybe she just thinks you're a good lay."

"The bigger question you must ask yourself, Shinji, is what do _you_ see in _her_?" Kaworu had entered the kitchen unnoticed, and had been listening in on the conversation.

Shinji looked at him. "Well… The sex was the only worthwhile thing that kept me going. I mean, her personality is crap, and she's got more psychological issues than a cliché anime character. She's so high maintenance it isn't funny."

Toji refilled his mug with coffee. "Sounds like a succubus."

Kaworu chuckled.

"A what?" Shinji stared at him blankly.

"A succubus, you know?" An odd stare was the only response he received. "It's one a' dose demons that molests people in their sleep." He said. "They're usually pretty messed up lookin', and it was said dat they stole a man's soul when they raped 'em."

Shinji cringed.

Kensuke raised an eyebrow. "How do you know this stuff, Toji?"

Shinji rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "Well," Toji started to explain, "it's like dis, really—"

"_How_ is Asuka a succubus?" Shinji suddenly cut in. "She isn't messed up looking, she doesn't molest me in my sleep, and certainly hasn't stolen my soul!"

Kensuke frowned. "Hasn't she? She's got you on a leash three feet long, pal. You can't do anything unless it pleases her." He cocked his head as he cracked his neck. "I'd say that your soul was gone. Get rid of her and you might get your soul back—along with some dignity."

Shinji sighed as he nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

Silence reigned supreme once more as Shinji walked to the sink and rinsed out his mug. Kaworu, after noticing that it was unlikely there would be anymore said on the subject, took his leave from the kitchen and returned to his cubicle.

"Whoa—hey!" Shinji suddenly remembered something. "Isn't that meeting right now?"

Kensuke shook his head. "Nah, man. That's not 'till ten. It's only nine thirty."

Shinji let out a relieved sigh. "Oh, good." He thought for a moment. "Don't you guys have something to do?"

Kensuke shook his head. "Not really. I read through the big briefing thing on that 'Project E' or whatever it is last night. And this morning—get this—my computer won't run."

Shinji's brow creased. "Boot disk issue again?"

Kensuke nodded. "Toji's was the same way. It seems like the operating system license expired on us."

"So we need to reload the system?"

"Hah," Kensuke laughed. "If only it was that simple." He paused for a moment. "You see, we don't run Microsoft Windows or Linux. Shit, we don't even run MS-DOS on our machines. We've got BetaMax; some off-brand, no-name company supplying our operating system package, and it just so happens to be compatible with Microsoft's VB programming language." He rolled his eyes. "Though why we're still using _that_ ancient thing is beyond me. Java's the wave of the present, and if we don't jump on the band wagon soon, we're gonna be left behind in the dust. Anyway—" he looked back at Shinji, "We bought BetaMax because they offered us a decent, affordable deal for the whole office… about eight or nine years ago. But, because of the deal, we had to buy licenses to operate BetaMax software, or the stuff wouldn't run correctly."

Shinji frowned. "Oh, that's right."

"And we can't renew da licenses because BetaMax went outta business two years after we bought da systems." Toji leaned against the counter. "So all a' our computers are gonna bite da dust within da next week or so."

"I'm sure the company will replace them quickly." Shinji replied, optimistically. "Besides, us not having computers isn't really _our_ problem, we've got nothing to worry about."

"Yeah… nothing to worry about, until they decide that layoffs will save more money than actual computers." Kensuke shrugged and rinsed his mug out, placing it next to the sink. "I dunno what's going to happen, but I need to go get that Project E binder and make sure I've read through _all _of it. Something tells me that we're gonna need to be completely up-to-date on this crap."

Toji started to follow him, before he turned to face Shinji again. "Hey, you know what's up with da whole stapler thing? Everyone's missing theirs; it's really getting to be a pain."

Shinji shrugged. "Apparently, Horaki's looking into it."

"Great, now we'll _never _know what happened."

---

"_Let me see you stripped down to the bone…"_

"Rei, is that Depeche Mode?" Shinji looked at her as he was passing his cubicle, stopping in the doorway as he recognized the music.

Rei stopped typing and looked over at him, a smile playing in her eyes, though her face betraying nothing. "Yes," she said.

"You like their music?"

She nodded ever so faintly. "They are favorable."

"Huh," Shinji said. "I love their stuff. Do you have their album… ahh," he thought for a moment, "_Violator_?"

She shook her head as she turned her chair toward him. "No, I do not."

"How about _Some Great Reward_?"

She shook her head again.

He nodded. "Okay." He said.

---

"For chrissake, turn that down, will you?" Shigeru covered his ears.

Makoto looked at him. "Fine, jeez. It isn't that bad." He said. "You act like it's toxic."

"Well, some of us aren't addicted to that stuff, alright? I don't mind it, but just keep it the hell down! Your earphones are so loud _I _can hear 'em."

"What are you listening to, then?" Makoto adjusted the volume on his computer.

"Slipknot." Makoto burst out laughing. "What? Slipknot's hardcore!"

"_Slipknot?_" Makoto continued to laugh. "Slipknot's _gay_, dude! They can't play at all, so they hide behind the sheer number of people in the band. The lyrics are crap, the instrumentation is so bad it's laughable, and I'm not even going to mention how much goddamn merchandise they've got." He shook his head. "Slipknot isn't hardcore, dude. They're just a bunch of hacks that have their own clothing line."

"But I don't see your precious Tristania with _their _own clothing line." Shigeru mumbled.

Makoto chuckled. "That's because the audience of Tristania isn't insecure enough to assume they _need_ their favorite band painted all over themselves just to be 'cool'."

Shigeru frowned, and turned back to his computer. He sighed, and let the silence return.

"Hey Maya, what are you listening to?"

The girl at the other end looked up, taking off one of her ear pieces. "What?"

Shigeru repeated himself. "What are you listening to?"

"Genesis."

"Oh."

"Yeah." She said enthusiastically. "Peter Gabriel rocks!"

Shigeru sighed.

* * *

TUESDAY; 10:08 AM

**CONFERENCE ROOM**

---

"Say, Shinji," Toji whispered to his friend while the conference was in session. There was enough background noise from the construction outside that they couldn't be heard by anyone else.

"Toji?"

"I've been meanin' to ask you if you were related to dat woman." He gestured to the brown haired woman at the end of the table. "You share da same last name."

Shinji stared at her. "I think her first name is Oui?"

"Oui? Dat's not right. In'it more like Youi?"

"Nah man," Kensuke leaned across the table. "It's Yui. Yui Ikari. She's our boss, sorta." He smirked. "She's got a Ph. D in ergonomics."

"I didn't know you could get a doctorate in that," Shinji said. "Wait, if she's got a Ph. D in ergonomics, shouldn't she be the supervisor of Human Resources?"

Kensuke shrugged. "I guess. Maybe upper management decided that she's better suited to supervising Engineering because we've got all the shitty equipment and complain the most about it."

Shinji was about to reply, until Toji tapped him on the arm. He turned toward the end of the table to witness the woman stand as if to make an important announcement.

"And these," Yui's voice rose above the construction to cut in at the appropriate time, "Are our new consultants." She said, motioning to a tall, elderly man in his mid sixties, and an average built bearded chap with orange tinted sunglasses. "We have decided to hire consultants to help increase our productivity." She paused, thinking. "Think of them as… guardian angels of work ethic."

Toji blinked.

Kensuke furrowed his brow in confusion.

Shinji winced.

"Please welcome Kuzo Fuyutsuki, and Gendo Ikari, everyone."

---

"I smell layoffs," Kensuke said as they exited the meeting. "And it smells like the cologne that saturates that Ikari guy's pours."

Toji grunted. "Yeah, well let's not talk about Mr. Ikari or his pours. Who's up for lunch?"

Kaworu looked over at him. "I am," he said.

"Yeah… Me too. There's nothing really here for me to do anyhow." Shinji rubbed his neck.

Kensuke nodded. "I definitely am. That meeting sucked the energy right outta me."

Shinji walked past Rei's cubicle, noticing that she had just sat down. "Hey Rei, you up for lunch?"

"I brought my own today, Ikari." She said softly.

"Oh."

* * *

TUESDAY; 12:41 PM

**MICHEAL'S PUB**

---

"Man, that is really weird." Kensuke said, between a fry and a gulp of Dr. Pepper.

"What is?" Shinji looked up at him.

"Kaworu and I both_ love_ Dr. Pepper," he said. "But that's not what's really weird." Shinji shot him a confused look while Kaworu simply smiled. "What's _really_ weird is that both you," he nodded to Shinji, "Our boss, and that weird consultant guy Gendo all share your last name."

Shinji shrugged. "Probably coincidence."

"Did you know," Toji started, interrupting everyone's thoughts, "Dat Dr. Pepper is created with prunes?"

Kensuke blinked and Kaworu just nodded. "Yes Toji, that may be one reason for the richness of the flavor."

"I dunno. I just know it tastes great." Kensuke said.

There was a brief moment of silence as they continued eating, no one really knowing what to say or how to kick off a conversation.

Shinji broke the silence. "Say, does anyone know what our company actually _does_?"

Kensuke put his fork down. "What?"

Shinji looked from his half-eaten fish up to stare at Kensuke. "What does Nerv Technologies actually do?" He asked again. "I honestly have no idea." He looked at Kaworu for an answer.

Kaworu frowned as he considered the question.

Toji reacted first. "I think we… no, wait. Never mind." He said. "I don't know."

"Well, let's see…" Kensuke thought for a moment.

"What do the programs we create do?" Shinji asked.

Kensuke shrugged. "It's all real easy bullshit work, really. VB database designs, for the most part." He sipped his Dr. Pepper. "At least, that's all the stuff they've ever given me. Toji here's done some other stuff."

Toji nodded. "Yeah, da other day I got a project which wanted me to sync bank accounts with checks 'n stuff." He said. "You know, automatic deposit an' transfers; da works."

"That's dumb," Shinji said. "They already have programs like that, directly interfaced with the banks themselves. Why'd they make you create another one?"

Toji shrugged. "I dunno, man. Dat's jus' da way it is." He sipped his drink. "But it probably has something to do with da BetaMax OS. I dunno for sure, but I'm willin' t' bet dat they had some software based off a' BetaMax programmin'." He said. "You can't run a Microsoft program on a BetaMax machine."

"Hmm," Shinji made a thoughtful noise. They were silent for a moment as they immersed themselves in their own thoughts. "So I suppose that it's safe to say that we're a database related programming company?"

Kaworu shook his head. "No, I wouldn't say that." He said. "In the years I've worked here, I have yet to even _touch_ database programming."

"Then what do you do?"

"Well, most of the time they've got me designing and building a better operating system—something that can replace BetaMax when the license expires." Kaworu sighed. "But they keep giving me miscellaneous projects that interfere with my main work. It's rather frustrating."

Shinji perked up. "So you're saying that the company has been planning to replace BetaMax with your OS?"

Kaworu nodded.

"But they keep waylaying you with trivial work?" Kensuke stared intently at him.

Kaworu nodded again.

"Dis is bullshit!" Toji exclaimed. "Our boxes are frying left an' right, and dis company's only got_ one guy_ working on da problem?"

Kaworu shrugged. "So it seems."

There was another brief silence.

"So," Shinji started again, "does anyone know what Ayanami does, then?"

"I believe she works on debugging and anti-virus programs." Kaworu answered his question as he picked up his Dr. Pepper. "She's also been helping me with the defragmentation and scan disk programs for the operating system, but she's always waylaid by miscellaneous projects as well."

"Huh." Shinji frowned again. "So it's pretty safe to say that we really have _no idea_ what it is Nerv Technologies, Inc. does." He looked around the table to see the affirmative nods. "Then what the hell do we work here for?"

Toji shrugged. "Beats starvin'."

Kensuke was thinking. "Well, that's not entirely true." He said.

"What? Workin' here isn't better than starvin'?" Toji stared at him. "How'd you figure?"

Kensuke shook his head. "No, no. I meant the company's purpose 'n all. I'd agree that it beats starving." He paused, staring down at his almost-empty Dr. Pepper. "Well," he started, "We could be the head of a bunch of smaller companies that actually _do _things."

"What; like a conglomerate of programming businesses under one roof?" Shinji squinted in confusion. "But then we'd all have different names—not just 'Nerv Technologies, Inc.'. And besides, if we were all just a bunch of consolidated programming companies, why do we have marketing, sales, tech, and engineering departments? If what you suggested is true, we should all just be engineers or tech guys."

Kensuke made a thoughtful noise. "Hmm," he said. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Maybe we do freelance programming work." Kaworu spoke up.

"What?"

"You know," he continued, "We get hired to program whatever someone wants programmed." He stared at his Dr. Pepper as he continued his thought. "I have heard freelancing being done by individual programmers—whether they are fully self employed, or even done on the side as an extra source of income—but I've never seen it done by a complete company."

Kensuke nodded. "I suppose it could work, in theory." He said. "We'd just be able to tackle more jobs, and jobs that are bigger than an individual freelancer could try." He shrugged. "It makes sense, I suppose."

"Wait," Kensuke suddenly said. "Wasn't Nerv Tech originally known as Gehirn Tech?"

"I think that's right," Kaworu agreed. "I believe Gehirn was a researching company."

"What did they research?"

Kaworu shrugged. "I do not know. It would make sense if it was a freelance researching business just as we are a freelance programming company."

Kensuke sipped his Dr. Pepper. "Yeah, I suppose that would make sense."

There were another few remarks of general agreement before they decided to pay their check and return to the office.

---

"Hey, Shin-man, where're you off to?"

Shinji turned back to his coworkers as they headed back to the office. The business park was small enough for inter-building foot traffic, but most people rarely ventured outside anyhow.

"I need to get something real quick," he said. "I'll be back in… I dunno, fifteen minutes."

Toji shrugged. "A'ight. Whatever, man."

* * *

TUESDAY; 1:38 PM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"Have you found your stapler yet, Rei?" Shinji stopped outside her cubicle with a bag in his hands.

She turned to him. "No." Her crimson eyes flashed from the fluorescent overhead glare.

"Well, we just went out to Michael's for lunch, and there's an office supply store nearby, so…" he pulled a stapler out of the plastic bag. "Here, you probably need it more than I do."

She took it from his grasp, hefting the weight in her hands. It was heavy enough to act as a paperweight, but light enough to easily manage. She experimented with it by stapling a stack of documents; producing a clean-cut punch and an easy discharge. It was, for lack of a better word, the _perfect_ stapler.

"Thank you," she all but whispered, her gaze entranced by the sleek design of the stapling machine.

Shinji walked away, oblivious to the light pink tinge that graced Rei's luminescent cheeks.

---

"So what are you guys up to?" Shinji strolled into the shared cubicle of Toji and Kensuke.

"Oh, hey Shin-man." Toji was leaned back in his chair, feet propped up on the desk with a pad of paper in his hands.

"Yo Shinji." Kensuke was in similar fashion. "What's goin' on?"

"I'm sorry guys, but I had my schedule mixed up." Their project manager peeked her head around the corner of the cubicle.

Shinji raised his eyebrows and looked at Kensuke. "What's that?"

"Oh, hi Shinji. I didn't know you shared a cubicle with these guys." She looked around. "Where's your desk?"

He shook his head. "That really isn't important." He said. "What's going on?"

Horaki blinked, returning to her previous train of thought. "The meeting," she said. "I thought this morning's meeting was for Project E, but… It wasn't—as you could probably see."

"Yeah, we were wonderin' 'bout dat." He interjected.

She frowned. "The meeting for Project E is scheduled for _tomorrow _at ten o'clock. This morning's meeting was regarding the consultants—which, by the way, will be interviewing each of you in turn."

As she left, Kensuke wrinkled his nose. "I told you layoffs were imminent."

Shinji shrugged. "Eh," he said, halfheartedly. "If we're laid off, I'm sure we can all get new jobs across the street."

---

"Hey Shigeru," Makoto looked over at the disgruntled coworker.

"What?"

"Have you seen my stapler?"

"No."

"Huh." He made a noise of confounded annoyance.

Maya hummed the lyrics for a Phil Collins song in the background.

---

"Ah, there you are!" Manager Horaki's head appeared above his cubicle wall.

"Hello," Shinji replied.

She walked around to his doorway. "Ms. Ikari doesn't know what happened to the staplers, but she's formed a committee to look into it. They should have a written report on her desk by Friday." She looked at him as he stared blankly at the pad of paper in front of him. "Is there anything you needed?"

"A computer with a working operating system would be great," he said.

She brightened. "Well you should be pleased to know that a group has been formed to create a working OS without relying on one of the big-names like Microsoft or Apple."

Shinji's forehead creased as he considered this. "But what about compatibility issues?"

Hikari frowned. "I don't know about that, I just know a group has been formed to handle it."

"Are Kaworu and Ayanami on it?" He asked. "They've been working on that project for a few years, if I understand correctly."

She shrugged. "I don't know."

Shinji blinked, and retuned his gaze to the blank pad. "Oh."

* * *

TUESDAY; 6:37 PM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"Asuka listen to me, goddamnit!" Shinji hissed into the phone, praying that he didn't disturb anyone who was still in the office.

"_You_ listen, you selfish bastard!" The cry came from over the phone, piercing his eardrums as he held the receiver away from his auditory receptacle. "We're through! Over! Done! You hear me?" He rolled his eyes. "We're done! I don't ever want to see you _again_!"

The sound of a loud 'click' signaled the end of the phone call. He sat there, phone in hand, staring at his blank computer screen. He slowly let his hand drift the phone back to its cradle, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

"_Tears falling from the sky, words from a lullaby…Everything beautiful dies."_

A rather melancholy song drifted from overtop the wall, bringing Shinji back to the realm of his cubicle. A smile tugged at his lips.

"Rei," he stood up suddenly, putting his hands on the top of the wall and looking down at his demure neighbor.

She looked up at him. "Yes?"

"Are you—" He was cut off as the dynamic duo approached his cubicle.

"Shin-man, what happened?" Toji leaned on the wall.

Kensuke joined him, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Yeah man, what's going on? Didn't you have a date with Asuka right about now?"

Shinji smiled mischievously. "Nah. We broke up."

Kaworu's head appeared above the wall across from him. "You should have heard the conversation." He said. "I can see now why she was such a pain."

"Yes!" Kensuke high-fived his friend. General sounds of approval were voiced by the remaining members of the party.

"We need to celebrate," Toji exclaimed.

Kensuke was the first to approve. "Yes! A celebration is in order!"

"Shinji, my man—to the pub!" Toji slung an arm around Shinji's shoulders, drawing him out of his confined, carpeted prison.

"To the pub!" Kensuke grabbed his wrist and threw him towards the Gates of Hell.

Shinji managed to stop himself. "Wait!" he looked back. "Anyone else want to come?"

"Nah man, we're the last guys here!" Kensuke said. "Everyone else left at five."

Shinji squinted. "But it's only five thirty or so now."

Kaworu chuckled. "You seem to have lost track of time, my friend." He nodded to the clock above the Gates of Hell. "You were on the phone for the better part of an hour."

Rei suddenly stood from her seat and grabbed her bag, apparently leaving the office.

"Rei—" She stopped abruptly at the sound of Shinji's voice. "You want to come have a few drinks with us? We're going down to Michael's to celebrate a victory."

She blinked as she regarded him.

"Alright."


	3. Wednesday

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything. Not NGE, not Dr. Pepper, not Starbucks, or Dunkin' Donuts, or Damon's Grill, or Microsoft/anything made by them. BetaMax, however, is mine.

**Author's Note: **Sorry it took so long for the update, but other things held priority over this story. With my 'serious' Eva fic completed (in all of it's dismal glory), I've started the outline for an original detective story. Hopefully I won't botch it as badly as I botched my last completed work. Ugh.

And as for the consultant interviews… Think of them like Instrumentality, but a little less menacing. A little. Not a lot.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the show…

* * *

**Chapter 3: Wednesday

* * *

**

"I-I don't know, Doctor." Shinji's defeated sigh signaled the return to his depressed state. "It's just… well…"

The psychoanalyst stared back at him with her warm gaze. After a short silence, she spoke to him with her cool voice. "Tell me about Asuka, Shinji."

"I _have_." He stressed, running a hand through his hair. "I've told you a dozen times. She's—she's—I don't know. I can't hate her, but I certainly don't like her."

"Why can't you hate her?"

"Well, she had a rough childhood…" He trailed off as he looked up at the attentive, attractive woman. "I'm no expert, but that's probably what makes her so… _mean_."

The doctor smiled. "Are you saying that she's the one in need of psychotherapy?"

Shinji didn't hesitate to think. "Probably." He paused. "People say she's wack, and I tend to agree with them—when she isn't around, anyhow. A few weeks ago she threw me into a table after I said something to that effect."

She nodded, before setting her notebook down on one of the tables and taking her glasses off. "Shinji," she started. "It seems to me that Asuka is the driving force of your depression."

"What do you mean? I hate my job, too."

"Yes, but your girlfriend—or lack thereof—is the reason for your feelings of insecurity and insignificance. Her continual repetition of violent, degrading acts against you proves that she finds comfort in control." She shifted in her seat, crossing her stocking-clad, million-dollar legs.

Shinji shrugged. "Yeah… I guess you're right." A reluctant sigh permeated the air around him. "Even the sex has gotten boring for me."

The blonde seductress smiled. "Now _that_ I can help you with…" Her voice had shifted into a lower tone, her curves making her way over towards him.

"U-uh—Doctor…" His voice was the only thing protesting now. "Are you sure we should be doing this _here_?"

"Shh," she placed a slender finger on his lips. "No one is going to know, one way or another, Shinji…" Her lips were already closing in, until—

A gasp, followed by a soft, low moan.

A whisper: "Doctor…"

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 5:47AM

**IKARI RESIDENCE**

---

"_Jezus-H-Christ—"_

Shinji opened his eyes to bring himself consciously forth into a reality of pain. His head throbbed traumatically; the lights everywhere were incandescent blurs of visual pain, the slightest sound turned into a cacophony of auditory agony, movement only generated kinetic suffering.

"Ikari?" A drowsy mop of bright blue hair stirred next to him, chaotically vacant red eyes suddenly focusing on his.

"Hi, Rei."

The first thought that didn't occur to him was why Rei Ayanami—co-worker and relative love interest—would be next to him in his bed. The second thought that didn't occur to him was why he had an arm draped across her waist.

The moment either of these thoughts surfaced in his pain-fogged brain, he shoved them back where they came from in favor of being hangover-less when he tried to sort them out.

"I think we drank too much last night." The groggy angel next to him only continued to stare, before shifting her awkward, unblinking gaze up to the hideous stucco ceiling.

Shinji blinked, following her gaze. "I think you're right." A hand covered his face and ran through his hair as he clenched his eyes closed. "I feel like my head was smashed in from a raging bull."

Rei nodded. "As does mine."

Shinji frowned. "I should have some pain killers somewhere over—" in his attempt to move, he fell out of the bed, landing on a shoe. He tripped a few minutes after standing, bracing himself against the wall before venturing into the bathroom for some sort of strong pain reliever.

---

Shinji woke up again, noticing that his hangover had subsided with the four or five extra-strength store-brand aspirin. He couldn't remember exactly how much he had taken, nor how much he had given Rei—but they did their job.

He glanced at the aforementioned bunkmate, the side of her face resting on his shoulder while she slept. He grinned to himself; this girl was a hell of a lot better than his ex-girlfriend _ever_ was in bed, and this girl was _asleep_.

He blinked as a sudden realization hit him.

What the hell was Rei Ayanami doing in his bed?

…And why did he still have his clothes on?

---

"Hi, Rei." Shinji stepped out of his bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He noticed her standing in front of his small mirror, brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to pull and smooth out the wrinkles in her blouse.

"Hello," Her gaze shifted from the hem of her shirt to his reflection, several feet behind her.

"You can take your…" he said, watching her start to unbutton her blouse. "Um," He turned toward the opposite door and headed into the kitchen. "I-I'll have breakfast soon. Frozen waffles alright?"

"That is fine." A soft approval wafted into the kitchen.

---

"Toji?"

"Kensuke?"

"Kaworu?"

"Hello."

Awkward silence reigned supreme for a brief moment.

"Toji, what are you doing in my bed?"

"Kensuke, what're you doin' on da floor?"

"I'd assume you two passed out in your respective positions."

"Why are you here, Kaworu? For that matter, Toji, what are you doing here, too? This is my house!"

"Apartment."

"Whatever. What's going on? What's this?" He lifted a bottle of _something_ up to the light to read the label. "Smirnoff?"

Toji's brow creased in confusion. "Who drinks Smirnoff straight outta da bottle?"

Kaworu smiled for lack of a different expression. "Kensuke, apparently."

"Ohh, my _head!_" Kensuke fell back onto the carpet, grabbing his temples and massaging his forehead slightly.

"Yours to, huh?" Toji looked down at him. "I think we drank too much, man."

"So it would seem. I'm going to work." Kaworu started out the bedroom door.

"Work?"

"Fuck work, man. I'm callin' in sick…"

"An' make sure you tell 'em it's on account a' self-inflicted stupidity."

"Shut up."

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 8:33 AM

**RUSH HOUR**

---

"Hey, Shig. You're here early." Makoto flew down the steps of the townhouse, yanking open the passenger door of his co-worker's sedan.

"Just get in the goddamn car."

"Jeez," He pulled his seatbelt on as the car drove off to the end of the street. "Someone's grouchy today." Shigeru narrowed his eyes as Makoto sniffed the air. "Did you spill coffee in here?" Then he looked at the driver. "Oh, that's you."

"My goddamn coffee maker exploded this morning."

"Wh—"

"And I don't want to talk about it."

---

"Toji."

"What?"

"Isn't that meeting today?"

"What meetin'?"

"The uh… oh, for that thing we got Monday. I can't remember… Project somethin' or whatever."

Toji blinked, and sat up on the bed. "Dat Project E thing?"

Kensuke nodded. "Yeah. That sounds right. When was it?"

Toji yawned. "I dunno. Ten-ish?"

They both stole a glance at the clock.

"Shit."

---

Shinji searched through the CD case he had stored in his glove compartment of his sedan. In doing so, he had stretched himself across the gearshift, his head awkwardly close to Rei's lap while his fingers fumbled with the compartment hatch. Rei's blood-red irises followed his movements silently, her wordless inquiry going unanswered for the time being.

"Rei," he finally stated, pulling back from his awkward position with the case in hand.

She continued to stare at him.

"Do you know what happened last night?" He didn't look at her as he fished through the clamshell of various music CDs.

She shook her head. "No." She said, before her gaze moved down to the clamshell he held in his hands. "But I believe that we passed out in your apartment."

Shinji frowned, continuing his search through the case. "I just wanted to know what we were doing in my apartment."

She turned her gaze to the windshield. "I do not know."

A few more silent moments passed before Shinji found what he was looking for. "Ah!" He pulled two sleeves out of this clamshell, before handing them to Rei. "These are Depeche Mode CDs. I figured you'd like them."

The rest of the drive to work was uneventful.

---

Makoto didn't turn from the window when he asked his cohort, "Did Maya need a ride?"

Shigeru shrugged. "I don't know. Did she call you?"

"No."

"She didn't call me either." Shigeru frowned. "Oh well."

The two of them were silent as the car rode on, a boringly flat landscape flying past the windows.

"Maybe her car's fixed, now." Makoto suddenly said.

Shigeru took a sidelong glance at him. "What happened to her car?"

Makoto shrugged absently. "I don't know. She said it was in the shop or something."

"She didn't say anything else?"

"Well, you know how she talks." He said, turning to him. "It was hard to follow the whole story, so I only caught bits and pieces. Something about a crash, a bunch of police cars, and a couple kilos heroin," he shrugged, "Or something."

"Are you saying that Maya is a drug trafficker?"

"I'm not saying anything!" He said defensively.

Shigeru blinked. "When did she tell you this?"

"Last night, over the phone. She said that she only had one phone call, and that she needed a lawyer."

"Um,"

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 9:02 AM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Shinji whispered the words to himself as he stared up at the Gates of Hell.

The lobby secretary suddenly piped up: "Good morning!"

"Too late."

---

"What the hell is this?" Shinji stared down at the monstrosity which occupied most of his desk space.

"Ah Shinji!" He suddenly found the space next to him taken up by a buxom, short-skirted tech supervisor. "Have you ditched that girlfriend of yours, yet?"

"Ms. Katsuragi—"

"Misato," she corrected him. "You can call me Misato _anytime_, Shinji." Her voice had lowered a few octaves, dropping into the zone of intentioned seduction.

He cringed. "Misato," he started again, "Why are you here?" He motioned to his desk as he returned his gaze to it. "And what is that?"

"Since most of the machines up here have fried, we've decided to replace them with typewriters!" She exclaimed, a fake smile donning her features.

Shinji closed his eyes in frustration. "We can't program with type writers." He stated, as calmly as he could. "We can't even do simple _data input_ on type writers."

"Have you ever tried?"

"No! It's—stupid!" He turned to her as he spoke, dramatically flinging his arm in the direction of the outdated beast. "The thing barely even relies on electricity for its operation—for chrissake, it doesn't even have a _monitor!_"

"There's more to life than programming, Shinji." She replied, knowingly.

"No, there isn't!" he cried. "I'm a programmer. I program! It's my job! _It's what I do!_" He was steadily working himself into hysterics. "If I don't do my job—"

Kaworu suddenly poked his head up above the other cubicle. "You still get paid," he said, before walking out of his cubicle in the direction of the kitchen.

Shinji jammed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, rubbing them as he tried to work out the twisted reasoning behind the tech manager's obscene comments. After a defeated sigh, he walked in and sat in his swivel chair before looking back at Misato.

"Is your department missing staplers, by any chance?" he suddenly asked, aware that his own still hadn't turned up.

"You know, now that you mention it…"

---

"I can't believe this," Shinji stared at the coffee maker after he joined Kaworu in the kitchen. "I simply can't believe it. It's like… a _nightmare_."

Kaworu leaned against the counter, waiting for the coffee to finish. "And you can't use your own personal computer?"

Shinji snorted. "No. I've only got Windows stuff on my box—and I don't want to endanger it by putting the cockamamie BetaMax OS on there. Who knows how badly BetaMax could screw up all my work on NT." He shook his head as he started walking toward the refrigerator. "Christ, why is it that all of our stuff is only compatible with BetaMax?"

"You're still using NT?" Kaworu asked. "Why haven't you upgraded to 2000 Professional yet?"

Shinji shrugged. "Haven't had the time, really." He said. "I should probably do that this weekend."

Kaworu nodded, before returning to his original thought. "Well, I heard that a team was formed to start official work on the OS replacement for this company." He shrugged. "That should mean that better times are just around the corner."

Shinji shook his head. "I don't know. I can't help but shake this hopeless feeling of pessimism." He stared at the refrigerator door in thought. "I mean, why should we program _our own_ OS when we can just spend a couple thousand bucks to get us all running Windows? Everyone in the business world with a PC runs Windows—not personally programmed no-name operating systems."

Kaworu nodded, understanding. "Yes, yes I see your point."

"Are you on that team, Kaworu?"

Kaworu frowned, in an odd way. "It's hard to say." He started. "Officially, no—but Horaki has personally asked for my assistance and input on the whole project. And Ayanami—it's incredible what she can do for security and firewalls."

There was a silence then, as the two of them let their thoughts return to their heads. The only noise in the kitchen was the dull hum of the various appliances, and the constant bubbling of the coffee maker.

"Have you ever thought about working for Jet Alone, Kaworu?" Shinji suddenly asked, returning to his counter space.

"You mean the office across the street?" Shinji nodded. "I suppose it's a valid option, should we get fired here."

Shinji craned his neck, cracking it slowly. "Yes, it is a valid option," he started. "But have you seriously given it thought?"

Kaworu shrugged. "Why? I'm sure that their office is identical to ours. After all, that's how corporate places work. Similarity equals success."

Shinji sighed in defeat. "Yeah, I guess you're right. They probably have their own illogical version of BetaMax, or something like it."

"Done," Kaworu suddenly stated.

"What?"

"Done," he repeated. "The coffee. Want some?"

"Sure."

---

"We're gonna be so damn late it isn' even funny." Toji sighed as he rested his head against the window of the passenger side door.

"Shut up, man." Kensuke yawned as he relaxed in the driver's seat. The traffic jam had blocked most of the highway for the time being. "We can't afford to miss this meeting. Our careers pretty much depend on it."

"I don't think it's _dat_ serious." Toji said. "Prolly jus' our paycheck."

Kensuke shrugged. "Same thing, really."

A siren caught their attention as red and blue lights suddenly flashed behind them.

"Gah, shit."

"What?" Toji looked over at the driver.

"There's a cop behind us, and I can't move anywhere to get out of his way."

---

"Well, we're here."

"Yep."

There was a silence as the two marketers stared at their empty office.

Shigeru spoke first. "Where the hell is our stuff?"

Makoto looked around, a morbid thought occurring to him as Shigeru started to slowly pace the entirety of the starkly furnished, small room.

"This can _not_ be good."

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 9:57 AM

**CONFERENCE ROOM**

---

"He's a winner." Shinji stated, upon seeing their new, prospective client. "Who wears sunglasses inside like that?"

"Have you noticed Kensuke or Toji anywhere?" Kaworu looked around at the conference table as he sat down. "I was aware that they were on the project as well."

---

"I can't believe we got a ticket for that." Kensuke grumbled, slamming the door to his car. "I mean, Christ, where the hell was I going to go? I couldn't move—there were cars everywhere!"

"It didn't 'elp dat you cursed at da officer for pullin' you over." Toji remarked, walking into the building.

Kensuke noted the time as they walked into the lobby of the office. "Damn, is it ten already?"

---

"I'm sure they'll be here any minute now," Shinji replied.

As if on cue, the two aforementioned, disgruntled employees strode through the door, closely followed by the project manager, Hikari Horaki.

"I humbly apologize for the lateness, Mister…?"

"Actually, you've just made it, Miss Horaki." The elderly, balding, somewhat rotund man stood as the rest of the team members took their seats. "My name is Lorenz Kihl, and I'm chairman of a very important committee."

Everyone around the table blinked.

After a silence, Shinji was the first to pry. "Alright…" he started, "What _exactly_ does this 'committee' do?"

Kihl pushed his nose up the slightest bit. "I am not at liberty to divulge that information."

Shinji shrugged, doing his best not to sigh. "Okay then, what do you want _us_ to do?"

"I trust you have received the preliminary reports?"

Everyone nodded.

"Good. Your assignments are in these folders." He said, passing a set of sleek, black, double-docket folders down the table. "You are not to talk about this project to anyone outside of your group. You are to follow all of these orders to the letter. Should you disobey anything, you will be severely disciplined."

The man named Kihl rose from his seat, and promptly left the conference room. Silence reigned supreme as Kihl was seen walking to his car from the conference room windows.

It was a rather long time until anyone spoke again.

"Is it jus' me, or did dat guy seem like a robot or sumthin'?"

"So…" Shinji looked down at the folder he had received. "What are we supposed to do? I mean, none of us have working machines…"

Horaki paused at the door to reply to Shinji's question. "Do as much preliminary work as possible," she said. "Computers were ordered, but they probably won't come in until next week."

As she left, Toji gave a sigh of defeat. "Den what da hell are we s'pposed to do?"

"I have no idea," Kensuke said, standing up. "But I do know that it's getting late, and lunch is needed."

"It's only ten twelve," a small voice said, reminding everyone of Rei's existence.

Kensuke frowned. "Brunch, then. Morning coffee. That meal/snack which is directly after breakfast but before lunch, and shouldn't be confused with Elevensies."

Shinji blinked in confusion, while Toji simply stared.

"Sure, I'm game." Kaworu stood up and waited patiently by the door.

Toji shrugged. "Yeah, whatever."

Shinji stood up. "Rei, you coming?"

"The coffee here is sufficient."

"Oh."

---

CLOSED

"Starbucks was bought?" Kensuke stared at the sign. "When did this happen?"

Shinji shrugged. "I don't know."

"I believe that it was one of the various Columbian coffee makers which bought them." Kaworu added his own input before staring absently across the street.

Toji scratched his head. "Dat's weird." He said. "I always thought dat Starbuck were da guys who always bought other coffee makers."

Kensuke looked off in the direction that Kaworu had zoned off. "You know, I thought I heard that Dunkin Donuts had pretty good coffee."

---

"Wait, wait, wait," Shigeru said. "Wait." He said again. "Wait. Can you run that buy us again?"

The older Marketing Supervisor stared down at him, annoyance donning her odd, somewhat masculine features. "There was a clerical error," she said. "Everyone that worked in your office—Ms. Ibuki and Mr. Huuga included—have been laid off by the Supervising management, higher up. However, due to an unexpected occurrence, the Tech division has just rehired you."

"So… we just move our desks across the building?"

The brunette nodded. "And you don't work for me, anymore. You work for the Tech supervisor, Ms. Misato Katsuragi."

"Okay. I suppose this is goodbye for now, Ms. Akagi." Her wry smile was her own way of sending the pair off, formalities apparently below her.

"She creeps me out," Shigeru mumbled.

"Oh man, this is great!" Makoto said. "Katsuragi! What a babe!"

---

CLOSED INDEFINITELY

"Ah man, this Dunkin Donuts went out of business?" Kensuke stared dumfounded at the 'closed indefinitely' sign, posted across the glass double doors.

Kaworu shrugged, staring up at the clouds idly.

"You know what this means," Kensuke started. "We'll have to go to the local shop on Route 30."

Shinji turned to him. "But that's a half an hour away!"

"You have anything else planned for this morning?" Kensuke pushed his glasses up his nose. "I mean, we don't even have _computers_, Shinji. What can we possibly do?"

Toji scratched the back of his head. "He's got a point."

---

"So you're my new tech guys, huh?" The buxom nymphomaniac stared at the new additions to the department. "Your desks are over in that office over there—" she nodded to another small room across the way, "—and I trust that Ibuki is on her way?"

Makoto started to reply. "Well, actually, Maya's in j—"

"She's sick." Shigeru said, cutting him off. "She had to take the day off. Strep throat or something, you know the sicknesses these days."

Misato nodded, knowingly. "Yes, well I hope she feels better. Send her my regards."

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 12:01 PM

**DAMON'S GRILL**

---

"I'd say that this was a productive morning well spent," Kensuke said, raising his glass to his lips.

"What are you talking about?" Shinji suddenly asked. "You guys barely got here in time for the meeting, and then we spent the rest of the morning looking for a decent coffee shop."

"Which we found, I might add." Kensuke said. "It was some damn good coffee, too. Being rid of a hangover and spotting a damn good coffee shop in one morning—I'd call that productive. Isn't that right Kaworu?"

Kaworu just smiled and raised his glass, as if in toast. "Sure."

"Toji?" Kensuke looked to the other friend for approval.

"Huh? Oh, yeah sure." He nodded absently, fiddling with his straw. "It _was_ pretty good coffee."

"There," Kensuke said, returning his conversation to Shinji. "See? Everyone agrees."

Shinji nodded. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, it was some good coffee, alright. I do have to admit that."

There was a silence as they all regarded the morning's proceedings.

"So what do you think of this whole Project E thing?" Shinji was the first to break the silence.

Kensuke shrugged. "All I see is some rotund robot-man with sunglasses who has a pole shoved up his ass." He said. "Not much to be said."

"Yeah," Toji agreed. "And da whole project looks pretty bogus anyhow—have you read what we're supposed t'be developin'?"

Shinji shook his head. "Not really. I haven't read much of it, anyhow." He chuckled, "I barely leafed through the preliminary packet, honestly."

Kensuke chuckled in suit. "I tried, but just about all of it was technical language—programming methods and stuff." He shrugged. "I understood it all, but I still fail to see it's relevance to the project."

Kaworu nodded. "Ironically enough, these guys happen to be my former employer."

"Really? How'd you know that?" Toji asked. "The client's name isn't mentioned anywhere."

"SEELE," he said, enigmatically. "It was a part of government intelligence, until the whole field was privatized. They were laid off, and subsequently formed that company."

"What do they do?" Kensuke leaned forward, interested.

Kaworu shrugged. "It's hard to say, specifically. I just know that everything they told directly to me was top secret."

"So you're sayin' that anythin' you tell us could get all of us shot, right?" Toji leaned on the table.

Kaworu chuckled softly. "Something like that."

---

"Shig,"

"Mak,"

"We need to go down to the precinct."

Shigeru dropped his fork. "What? Why?"

Makoto frowned. "Because I think we should bail Maya out of jail."

Shigeru scratched his head for a moment. "Why?" he asked. "If she got herself in jail, there's probably a reason—like _drug trafficking_."

Makoto shrugged. "I dunno, but I don't think she was really doing anything conspicuous—I mean, look at her: it's _Maya_ we're talking about. She was probably framed or set up or something."

Shigeru sat back in his chair, thinking for a moment.

"Alright, fine. Let's go." He grabbed his keys, and walked out the door, followed closely by Makoto.

It wasn't until they had been sitting in the car for several minutes did they realize a rather important fact.

"Mak, do you even know where the local precinct _is_?"

---

"I have an idea," Shinji stated, gathering the attention of the rest of the table.

Kensuke sipped his Dr. Pepper. "What would that be?"

"Well," he started, "Remember how, on Monday, I wanted to bring the wrath of Black Metal down upon everyone?"

Everyone nodded.

"And remember how I was going to do that?"

"Through the utilities server," Kensuke said. "I had it all ready, but Mister Revolutionary, here—" he gestured to Kaworu, who just smiled vaguely, "—said something about saving the plan as a wild card until we need it."

Shinji nodded. "Yes, I remember that. Well, I think I have a way to get back at management, but we're going to need Rei's help."

Toji looked at him. "Why?"

"Kaworu says she's good with anti-virus programs." Shinji explained. "If she's good with that stuff, she should know how to design and program a pretty damn good virus, as well."

"Hmm," Kensuke made a thoughtful noise. "We'll talk more about this at the office—considering I have a consultant meeting to get to in about… twelve minutes." He said. "Horaki gave me the notice just before the conference this morning."

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 1:30 PM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"And you are… Aida."

"Yes."

Kensuke stared back at the rather intimidating man, who sat with his hands bridged over his nose like some sort of evil, plotting mastermind. His cohort regarded him a tad more warmly; unlike the intense stare which seemed to bore holes into his very soul.

The orange tint to his glasses was driving Kensuke insane, really.

"You're… a programmer?"

"That's right."

"What do you program?"

Kensuke shrugged.

"What do you program?" he asked again.

"Programs."

"What do you program?"

"I program programs that require programming." He exclaimed. "It could be anything!"

The elderly man next to the speaker blinked, frowning as he regarded the logic behind Aida.

"Do you enjoy it?"

Kensuke shrugged again. "Do you enjoy your work?"

"We're asking the questions here," the man reminded him. "Now, do you enjoy your work?"

Kensuke frowned. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'd say so."

"Liar."

---

"I wonder how the consultant meeting is going." Shinji stared into the windowed conference room, where the backs of the consultants were seen.

Toji shrugged. "I dunno, man." He relaxed against the cubical wall he was leaning up against. "We're probably gonna be laid off."

"Yeah," Shinji agreed. "My résumé is pretty up to date, so I'm set." He nodded toward the windows facing the street, to his left. "I just keep thinking that Jet Alone's stock has been looking pretty nice."

"Jet Alone, huh?" Toji followed his gaze. "Yeah, dey 'ave been doin' pretty well, 'aven't dey?"

"Yeah," He replied. "Say Toji, have you noticed something about our employee benefits?"

"Like what?"

Shinji shrugged. "I dunno, but it seems like every time we get the monthly updates from our company, the list gets smaller." He thought for a moment. "Say, how's your retirement fund going, anyhow?

---

"Oh man…" Kensuke sat back at his cubicle, and stared at his desk for a little bit.

"Hey man, what's up?"

"Yeah, Ken-man. What's hangin'?"

Kensuke shook his head. "We're fucked." He said.

Shinji blinked. "Why?"

"These consultants—they're crazy. Wacko. Off their rocker." He said. "That wasn't a consultant meeting; that was an insulting interrogation." He sighed. "I'm pretty sure that they know now that we're all a bunch of lazy-ass, disgruntled workers who barely do enough work to scrape by."

Toji frowned.

Shinji rubbed his neck as he stared at the ceiling.

Kaworu walked in and stopped by the cubicle. "Coffee?" he asked.

"Actually, I could do with a Captain Morgan's." Kensuke replied, eyes clenched shut.

Kaworu frowned. "I don't think we have any of that, today."

"What a shame."

---

"Come on, you piece a' shit coffee maker." Kensuke brought his hand down in a firm smack, delivered to the maker's top. "Work!"

Kaworu frowned as he did this. "Hmm," he made a funny noise. "It worked for me this morning."

Kensuke shook his head as he leaned back against the counter. "Whatever. Screw it."

"If it's any consolation, I think I've got a pretty decent plan to get back at management." Shinji leaned against the refrigerator after grabbing himself a Dr. Pepper. "Want one?" He tossed one over to Kaworu.

"I'll take one," Kensuke said glumly. "What was this idea of yours?"

"Well," Shinji started, taking a long gulp of the beverage, "It's gonna require all of us, including Rei." Everyone nodded, listening. "My plan was this: we're going to hack into the server, like last time—that's where Kaworu comes in,"

Kaworu cocked his head. "Why me?"

"Because they've probably changed the location of the utilities we need to access. It would be great if you could get us a map of the directories." Kaworu nodded, and Shinji returned to his original thought. "But then we'll need a virus—a _nasty _one. I figure we can get Rei to concoct some sort of devastating virus which will only target the management-level machines." He took another sip. "Once that's in place, I figure we'll have fun with the utilities again—Tsjuder blasting over the P.A., lights flickering, nasty thermostat malfunction; the works. Kensuke, I'm gonna need you to hack into the server itself, while Rei is delivering our present to management. Toji, you're gonna have to come up with the music bug."

Toji raised an eyebrow. "Music bug?"

"Yeah, we're gonna have to have something play over and over on the P.A., not just one song." Shinji said. "You know, to add ambiance to the computer terminal chaos."

Toji nodded in understanding.

Kensuke frowned, finding a fault in the idea. "How are we going to get Rei to go along with this plan?"

Shinji shrugged. "I'll figure something out."

---

"You are Hikari Horaki?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"And you are a…?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "Junior Manager of an Engineering team."

"Junior Manager?"

"Yes."

"What," the consultant paused, for effect, "is a Junior Manager?"

"We um," she started, awkwardly, "We deal with clients." She said, then added as an afterthought, "And engineers." She waited for a response. When she received none, she elaborated. "We're like middlemen. The clients tell us what they want, and the engineers tell us what the client gets."

"Then what is a Senior Manager?"

"Uh—" she started, "We report to them."

"What do they do?"

She blinked, caught completely off guard. "Y-you'd have to ask one of them."

The man's eye twitched.

After an eternity of silence and the scribbling of his pen, he looked up again. "Very well, we're finished. You may go."

* * *

WEDNESDAY; 4:08 PM

**COUNTY PRESINCT**

---

"You want to tell me what the hell happened?" Shigeru stared at his co-worker through the iron bars of the jail cell. Makoto was next to him.

"It's… a long story," she mumbled.

There was a silence.

"We'll bail you out tomorrow morning." Shigeru suddenly said, then turned to leave.

"What? Why not now?" Maya gripped the bars of the cell.

Makoto shrugged. "We don't have the cash right now. With bail posted at a couple thousand…" he trailed off. "Don't worry, Maya. We'll get you out tomorrow... I think."


	4. Thursday

**Disclaimer: **I OWN NOTHING. NGE and all characters are property of GAINAX, I'd suppose. Dr. Pepper is owned by Pepsi Co. 'Ruby Tuesday' is a song by the Rolling Stones. Ruby Tuesday's is a restaurant chain, owned by someone else. T.G.I.Friday's is another chain, owned by a different someone else. Everything is owned by their respective owners. BetaMax is mine.

**Author's Note: **One, I'd like to point out that this _isn't_ an Eva/Office Space crossover. This is an 'Alternate Universe' fic. There's a difference.

Sorry about the two-some week wait. Work's been pretty hectic, I've been getting home pretty late, and I got an awesome new music program that's been taking up some of my time. And that's not even mentioning how many hours I've put in on my instruments the past few weeks.

Anyhow, I know it's short, but I didn't really have anything planned for this chapter. It's really just a filler to get to Friday, which is the climax of the story, and the last chapter. This is just… more pointless banter, I suppose.

And don't take anything seriously or personal. This is fictional comedy.

Now, on with the show…

-----------------------------------------------------

**Chapter 4: Thursday**

-----------------------------------------------------

"Hello, Shinji…"

"Hello, Ritsuko…"

"Mmm, naughty boy…" a sultry laugh echoed from the couch. "I told you to call me 'Doctor' when we're on this couch."

A tired, nervous laugh was heard. "S-sorry, Doctor."

"That's better, my patient," the female voice again, "but you're still deserving of punishment for your last slip up."

"U-uh—"

"Do you know what this little device is, Shinji?"

"N-no, Doctor."

A thoughtful noise accompanied her response. "Neither do I. Let's find out what it does, shall we?"

"Doctor, I don't think—whoa—a-a-ahh" he stuttered, "I—ah-h-h-h—wow."

The quiet laughter from the psychiatrist only added to the situation. "I'm glad you're enjoying this, Shinji." She said. "I'm most definitely glad…"

-----------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY; 7:00 AM

**IKARI RESIDENCE**

---

A loud thumping awoke Shinji from his somewhat distant slumber on his living room couch. Blinking tiredly for a few moments, he slowly stood up and regarded the door with curiosity.

Another round of intense bangs erupted from the wooden slab, this time accompanied by a masculine, vaguely British voice. "Shinji! My man, you in there?" More knocks.

"Yeah." Shinji returned, "Yeah, I'm here." He stood up, scratching his neck tiredly. "Sort of." He lumbered toward the entrance to the quaint townhouse.

As the door swung open, Shinji regarded the somewhat scruffy man with an exhausted expression. "Hello, Kaji."

"Hey man!" The guy said enthusiastically. "How's it going?"

Shinji nodded and stood back, gesturing for Kaji to enter. "Not too bad, really. Wanna come in?"

The door closed with a quiet clatter, signaling the man's entry into the abode. He gazed around for awhile, watching Shinji as he lumbered off toward the kitchen, before dropping himself on the couch and resting his feet on the coffee table coasters.

"So, how have things been?" Shinji looked back from his position at the coffee maker, as he responded to his guest's inquiry.

"Not bad. Work's been…" he paused, thinking. "…Interesting. Kinda upsetting." He strolled over to the couch and plopped down next to Kaji, waiting for the coffee. "They hired consultants to help the company be 'more efficient'—whatever that means. Oh, and our outdated operating systems all crashed at the same time, so none of us are getting any work done."

Kaji nodded, frowning. "Yeah, that's probably why I love my line of work."

"Don't have to deal with consultants or operating systems?"

He chuckled. "Nope."

Shinji craned his neck toward the ceiling. "Say, speaking of your profession, where'd you just get back from? Somalia?"

Kaji shook his head. "Nah," he said, "Cambodia. Somalia was a few weeks before that." He scratched his shoulder absently. "Speaking of which, we're probably scheduled to go out that way again sometime soon." He sighed. "Anyway, yeah… Cambodia's looking a lot like it did thirty years ago."

"Nothing's changed?"

"Not really. We provide what we can as the Peace Corps, but that's only local help—and who knows what happens when we leave."

Shinji was about to reply, until he heard the coffee maker's bubbling finally die down. "Coffee?" he asked, as he started for the kitchen.

"Sure, man."

"So," Shinji continued from the kitchen, "what brings you here?"

"Ahh, I just wanted to see if Katsuragi was in town." The slightly older man replied. "She still work up at your place?"

"Yeah." He replied. "She's still the Tech Supervisor as well—though I've always thought that she and Ms. Akagi should switch positions."

Kaji clenched his brows in confusion. "Ritsuko? She's a psychiatrist."

"No, I meant her mother, uh—Naoko, I think her name is." Shinji brought the coffee into the living room. "You might recognize her. She's a brunette, kinda angry looking—a real Nazi, from what the marketing guys claim."

"Huh." Kaji took the coffee and relaxed on the couch. "Oh well. Hey, I'll be in town for the next few days. Why don't we get everyone together say… tomorrow night and have a big party? You and those guys you hang with, Katsuragi, that Horaki manager girl, Soryu—everyone. I'm sure I can even track down the good doctor for this escapade, as well."

Shinji shrugged. "Uh—actually, Soryu and I kinda… broke up."

"No way! You serious?" Kaji almost jumped from his position. "Man, you don't say. Well, I can't say I'm all that surprised. You and her… don't mix. No chemistry." He shrugged. "To be honest, I'm only surprised that you two stayed together for so long."

"Yeah," Shinji nodded, "but I'm sort of dating this other girl in my department."

"Sort of?"

"Sort of." Shinji shrugged. "It's—she's—I dunno. It's all messed up." There was a brief silence for awhile, until Shinji spoke up again. "Well, listen man; I gotta get going to that work place 'n all, so I'll see you later."

Kaji stood up. "Sure, no problem. I'm staying at a hotel up the street a ways, so I'll be around." He opened the door and started down the steps, before turning back. "And remember—party tomorrow night!"

-----------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY; 8:38 AM

**RUSH HOUR**

---

"How's dat work?" Toji scrunched he brow as he considered his friend's statement. "I mean, it doesn't even seem _possible_."

"Well, sure it's possible 'n all, but it isn't really practical." Kensuke replied. "I mean, sure, we're all probably gonna get laid off, and sure, we're getting laid off for reasons we can't control anyhow, but is that really so bad?"

Toji looked at him.

"Look at the company we work for, man!" Kensuke exclaimed, lightly hitting the steering wheel for emphasis. "No one in their right mind enjoys working here. Even people who _aren't_ in their right mind hate the place—just look at Kaworu!"

"Hmm," Toji made a thoughtful noise, before nodding in vague agreement. "Yeah," he said, "Yeah, you got a point there."

---

Makoto ducked into the sedan as it pulled up to the curb. "Any luck with the coffee maker?"

Shigeru narrowed his eyes as he gazed out at the quiet, suburban neighborhood. "Don't start it," he said. "Don't you _even_ start with the coffee maker. That piece of shit has given me hell every waking minute that I've been home."

"Have you considered replacing it?"

The driver scoffed. "And what makes you think a new one will be any better? Half of the coffee makers out these days are exactly the same—one company designs it and the others pirate the blueprints."

Makoto made a noise. "Huh," he said. "I always wondered about that."

"It's just like those goddamn—uh—oh, what are they?" Shigeru continued, but stumbled for words. He looked over at his passenger. "You know, those things that…uh, oh damnit!" he gripped the steering wheel in frustration. "See what happens when I don't get morning coffee?"

Makoto frowned. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Toasters!" Shigeru exclaimed, triumphantly. "You know how all of the toasters in stores claim that they won't burn your toast, or overcook it, and how they brag about how their toaster is better than the one next to it because of the fact it has four slots instead of two?"

The spectacled man blinked. "Sure," he said, though he really had no idea what his coworker was ranting about.

"But then you take it home, plug it in, and the damn thing burns your toast—exactly like the toaster you just threw out did!" He ground his teeth as he slammed on the break and hit the steering wheel. "It's an endless cycle of burnt toast and hopeful, gimmicky marketing tactics!" he angrily wailed. "A cornucopia of damaged dreams and false promises, caught in a spiral of shattered hopes and self loathing!"

Makoto was silent for a while, before he spoke. "…For toast and coffee?"

"Damn right for toast and coffee!" Came the immediate response.

Makoto then did the only thing he could do in that situation. He sighed.

---

Shinji's ride to work was about as interesting as a thirty-year-old beige colored sofa.

-----------------------------------------------------

THRUSDAY; 9:11 AM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"Good morning!"

"Highly doubtful."

---

"Rei?" Shinji stopped by the water cooler before actually reaching his desk. "What are you doing?" He had spotted her slender frame leaning against the wall next to the liquid dispenser.

She opened her eyes. "Hello, Ik—Shinji." She caught herself. "I await the consultants. My interview is in nineteen minutes."

"So… what? You're psyching yourself up or something?"

Her brow creased in confusion. "No." she said.

Shinji blinked.

After a silence, she continued. "The license on my version of BetaMax has expired. I am unable to complete the work that has been assigned to me."

"So you're just hanging by the water cooler…?" He said, somewhat uncertainly.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Kaworu strode down the hall and grabbed one of the paper cups next to the dispenser. "Hello," he said. "My computer just committed suicide."

Shinji frowned as an unsettling quiet drifted over the area.

"Well—I'm just going to… um…" he nodded toward his cubicle. "You know. Yeah."

Kaworu nodded and smiled, still ingesting the liquid of life.

It wasn't until he was standing in the doorway of his cubicle did he realize there was someone else occupying it.

---

"'Another day, another dollar'." A tall, elderly man said as he stretched next to his car—a sleek, black, overpowered Maserati. "Time to face the rat-race and secretly laugh at the fools who have to put up with it."

"Fuyutsuki!" A stern voice from behind him called to him.

He nodded to the orange spectacled man, who was in the process of gathering his briefcase from the trunk of his Porsche. "Ah, hello Ikari."

The other man nodded his greeting. "You're early. I'm surprised."

It wasn't until the short-haired brunette stepped out of the same Porsche did he realize that his partner had a companion. "Hello, Professor,"

"Ms. Ikari?"

"Yes, this is Yui." Gendo said.

"Our current employer." Fuyutsuki added, brow creased into a disapproving scrunch, a frown overcoming his features. He was about to ask just what the hell his business partner and part-time pupil was doing driving the woman who hired them around. He would have asked, had he not been cut off.

"Yes Kuzo, our current employer." Gendo only smirked in response.

"Don't be so uptight about it, Doctor Fuyutsuki." The woman half-chuckled. "It's nothing serious…"

The side of Fuyutsuki's face twitched unnoticeably. "There's no need for the 'doctor', Ms. Ikari. 'Professor' will suffice."

"Very well," she smiled. "Then do away with the prefix in front of mine, _Professor_." She mocked stressing the formality, like an infatuated college student. "Yui will do fine." After a moment of awkward staring between the three of them, she took her leave; the sound of her heels echoing against the concrete sidewalk into the building being a distracter to both men's thoughts.

Fuyutsuki was first to break the silence which descended after her departure. "Is it just me, or is she a tad—" HOT! "—loose?"

Gendo smirked again, unblinking eyes still on her retreating form. "It makes no difference." He said. "Our task remains the same and the scenario remains unchanged." He picked up his briefcase again. "I foresee layoffs in the near future."

Fuyutsuki just sighed.

---

"Why do I have this increasingly eerie feeling of dread?" Makoto stepped through the doors of the tech department, looking around for a brief moment before heading toward the office he was assigned to.

"What, like we're gonna be laid off?" Shigeru followed his lead. "Probably because we are."

Makoto frowned and shook his head. "No," he started. "—Well, I'm not doubting the fact that we'll all be replaced by a bunch of cheap, know-nothing college kids, but—"

Shigeru cut in: "Because they'll probably do more work than we've ever done." He snickered.

Makoto nodded. "Yeah, true…" he continued, "But no, I'm not dreading that. We can probably get new jobs across the street, anyhow."

"That's the beauty of the corporate world!" Shigeru exclaimed. "We're all expendable, and yet, our positions are completely irreplaceable."

"I have this other eerie feeling of dread," Makoto elaborated, setting his stuff down on his small desk. "Sort of…" he paused, thinking. "Sort of like that feeling you get when you know you have to face a teacher that you really hate, but you haven't seen in a few days."

Shigeru blinked. "_What?_"

Makoto shrugged ambivalently. "I don't know. Just sorta… you know. A dread."

---

"I've been waiting for you, Shinji." The older woman peered at him, rotating in the swivel chair so that he could see her.

"Mrs. Akagi?" He blinked in confusion. "…Why? What are you doing here?"

"As head of the tech division," she started, throwing Shinji's preconceived notions of the company out the window, "I'd like to interview you about the BetaMax issue."

He blinked. "What issue is that? The license expired, and the operating system messed up my computer to the point that it can't be rebuilt." He shrugged. "We'd have more luck trying to use a hard drive that had a nail through it than try to use the BetaMax garbage again."

A wry smile twisted the face of the brunette. "Yes, we understand that." She said. "But in order to program a better OS, we'd like your input."

"Mine?" Suddenly, Shinji felt special. The one-in-a-million picked to design the new operating system. It was like he won the lottery—a special contest he never entered—a raffle! It was exhilarating.

"Well," the woman shrugged, "Not _yours_, specifically. We need an engineer's input as to how this operating system would work—since you guys are the ones who'll need to use it all the time." She cracked her neck. "We're actually interviewing everyone in your department."

Shinji's hope was instantly crushed. "Oh." He sighed dejectedly. "Go talk to Nagisa," he said finally. "He and Ayanami have already started work on the new OS."

She nodded and stood up, shoving her left hand into her pocket. "You've been a big help. The tech division thanks you for your support."

He scrunched his eyebrows. "Really?"

"No. But I have to say that for courtesy reasons—company policy and such; you know." She said, leaving the cubicle. "Bye."

---

"Please state your name for the record."

"Rei Ayanami."

"Rei?"

"Yes."

"That's your name? Rei?"

"Yes, it is."

There was a silence as the spectacled man scribbled something down on the paper, and then returned to his previous stance of acute observation.

"What is it that you do here, Rei?"

She furrowed her brows slightly at the loose usage of the informalities. "I am a computer program engineer."

The elder man spoke up. "Yes, we can see that."

"What do you do here?" the other man asked again.

"Most of my assigned work is in security. I design debugging, anti-virus, and firewall programs for commercial and residential use." Her voice portrayed little, if any, emotion. It was somewhat clear, however, that she was rather annoyed at the consultants' presence.

The older Ikari pushed forward anyhow. "Have you designed any programs for federal use?"

"Yes."

"I see."

More notes.

Fuyutsuki took the chance to glance at his partner's notes, and he came to the conclusion that it was going to be a _long_ interview.

-----------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY; 10:10 AM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"She was…" Fuyutsuki trailed off.

"…Odd."

"To say the least."

"Indeed."

There was a silence for a few brief moments.

"Definitely put her in the 'layoff' pile, along with everyone else we've interviewed."

"Weirdo."

---

Rei Ayanami returned to her desk, and promptly decided to destroy her computer—if only out of spite.

---

Kensuke yawned as he stared at his desk, before deciding to open the large binder dedicated to the mysterious Project E. He was leafing through it when he heard a loud 'BANG!'.

"What da hell was dat!" His cubicle mate shot up from his chair, wildly flailing his head above the walls in hopes of spotting the source of the disturbance.

"Toji, sit down. I'm sure it wasn't anything serious."

---

"Ms. Akagi?" Makoto flinched dramatically and nearly fell out of his chair. "W-what are you doing in the Tech Division?"

Shigeru turned toward the door. "Yeah. You're the Marketing Supervisor—what are you doing _here_?"

"I was transferred by the higher-ups." She said, nodding toward the door vaguely. "They claimed that I had a better knowledge of the technical programming involved with the company than I had people skills."

Makoto cowered under her intense, leery glare. Shigeru's sweat was as painful as liquid hot-ice. The unsympathetic silence seemed as hostile as the woman who brought it on.

She sighed. "Get back to work, dweebs." She walked back out the door, but only after adding, "And by the way, your ten o'clock coffee break has been cancelled. Just so you know."

"What?"

"_Why?"_

She shrugged distantly. "Oh, no reason, really. Increase productivity and all that jazz. Company policy—you know." Her retreating footsteps seemed to punctuate her statement like the nails in their coffins.

Makoto shook his head in a condemned state of shock. "Goddamnit."

Shigeru bleakly sighed. "Oh well." He said. Then he chuckled. "No 'Katsuragi babe' for _you_!" His chuckling soon broke out into loud guffaws of mirthful hilarity.

---

"State your name," the older man sighed.

"Kaworu Nagisa, Senior Engineer."

"What's the 'senior' mean?"

A shrug. "Who knows?" he replied calmly. "It's just some title. I think it may have some hidden meaning for bureaucrats and the like, but for me… It's just a valueless title."

"Hmm," The man scribbled some notes down. "What, then, is it that you do here?"

"I've been bogged down by various projects concerning minor banking companies recently." He replied. "Nothing really all that serious. Just miscellaneous programs for minor, no-name companies."

"And that's it?"

"I'd say so."

---

"Say, where's Kaworu?" Shinji leaned against the wall of the kitchen. "It's almost eleven already."

Kensuke shrugged. "I don't know where Kaworu is, but I'm more concerned about this god damn coffeemaker." He stared at the empty pot in utter befuddlement. "It hasn't done anything. It's like… broken, or something."

Toji nodded. "Eh, screw da coffee, man. Just wait 'til Kaworu is outta da meetin' so we can go t' lunch. We got nothin' else t' do."

Kensuke sighed in defeat, dumping the water out of the back of the non-functioning coffeemaker. "Yeah. May as well." He set the appliance back down on the counter and leaned up against the refrigerator.

"Hello," As if on cue, Kaworu strolled into the kitchen, refilling the coffeemaker and turning it back on. In seconds, the thing was working perfectly; the sound of steamy bubbles flooding the kitchen area.

"Oh you gotta be fucking _kidding_ me!" Kensuke threw his hands up in the air. "Come _on_! It works for you, but it doesn't work for me! Whatta piece of shit!"

Kaworu shrugged absently and leaned against the counter.

"Actually, we were planning on going to lunch, Kaworu." Shinji piped up. "We have to be back by one thirty, tho'."

"Yeah, I got da consultant meetin'." Toji pushed off the counter. "But I 'ave to admit, I'm pretty hungry right now."

Kaworu shrugged indifferently. "Arlight." He said. "Whatever works."

-----------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY; 12:01 PM

**T.G.I. FRIDAYS**

---

"Who the _hell_ would name a place 'T.G.I. Friday's'? That's gotta be one of the dumbest names for a bar and pub I think I've ever seen." Kensuke shook his head as they waited for their waiter. "I mean, who would name a restaurant after a day of the week?"

"You don't complain about Ruby Tuesday's." Shinji observed.

"But that's because Ruby Tuesday's is named after the song 'Ruby Tuesday', by the Rolling Stones. And the song's about some girl named Ruby Tuesday, not some stupid narration of a day." He retorted. "Besides, naming a restaurant after a song is better than naming one after a phrase."

"There's more to it than that, I think." Kaworu stated. All eyes went to him, as he continued. "The song, I mean. 'Ruby Tuesday'—there's more to it than just a regular love song."

Kensuke shrugged. "Yeah, but that wasn't my point."

"Regardless. The song is pretty poignant—that's why they named the restaurant after it." He cracked his neck. "If I remember the lyrics correctly, it had to do with a girl whose name corresponded with a day of the week—Tuesday, obviously—and she's always a different sort of person with each passing day. She's so caught up in the times that she keeps reinventing herself, without any way of slowing down. And the speaker—singer, rather—comments on the fact that he can't get to know the girl." He paused for a moment. "The 'Tuesday' part of her name is perhaps a symbol of that perpetual change in herself. I doubt the 'Tuesday' _itself_ is important, but more the idea behind the 'Tuesday', the fact that it's a passing day—as temporary and fleeting as the next." His gaze had settled on the table cloth as he spoke. "The fact they chose Tuesday is probably because it's a day that doesn't have any sort of special meaning. It just exists, like Thursday—whereas Monday is the beginning of the workweek, Wednesday is the 'hump day', Friday is a party night, Saturday is a recuperation from the party night, and some people consider Sunday to be sacred, etcetera. They've all got certain importance, except for Tuesday and Thursday."

Kensuke shrugged yet again. "So what?"

"Well, that's the whole point of the song. The girl changes so often that she doesn't really let anyone get to _know_ somebody." Kaworu inhaled deeply. "I think the message is to try and slow down one's life, otherwise you'll end up like her—off and adrift far away, and essentially, terribly alone." He shrugged. "That's probably why they named the pub chain after the song—it's supposedly a place to unwind and meet people."

There was a thoughtful silence.

"Well," Kensuke started, "All the more reason that Ruby Tuesday's is exempt from my comment. T. G. I. Friday's is based on a ridiculous acronym that was real popular in the nineties. It was the first of all those ridiculous abbreviations that we've got now."

"Instant Messaging didn' help dat, either." Toji interjected.

"Yeah," said Shinji. "That really gets on my nerves. It's like they're too lazy to type coherent words and sentences, so they abbreviate everything."

"Lazy bastards." Kensuke shook his head.

"…And den dere's dat LEET crap." Toji continued. "You know, da 'l' an' da 't' wit da two '3's in da middle."

"Oh don't get me started on _that_ garbage." Shinji said, shaking his head in disgust.

"Yeah, talk about bogus."

They all sighed except for Kaworu, who sat there sipping his Dr. Pepper with a laid back smile plastered to his face.

-----------------------------------------------------

THURSDAY; 1:33 PM

**THE OFFICE**

---

A sigh was heard.

"Your name?"

"You got it already."

"State it for the record."

"Toji Suzaharra, Engineer."

Now the older man spoke: "What do you do here, Toji?"

"Mistah Suzaharra would do fine," came the immediate response. "As for what I do…" he shrugged. "I'd say somethin' along da lines of database work."

"Databases? What do you do with them?"

Another shrug. "Anythin' really. Design work, testing, even the programmin' itself. Whatever needs t'be done."

There was a brief silence as the orange-spectacled man took some notes.

"Well…" Toji spoke again. "Actually, nowadays I'm not doin' a whole lot. With BetaMax's complete suicide, we got no workin' machines. I'm pretty sure da whole company is losin' money over it."

"Wait—BetaMax suicide?"

Toji definitely had their attention now. "Sure, sure. The OS died earlier this week, and the management doesn't want to replace it—they claim it'll cost too much to buy licenses for windows." He diverted his eyes to the desk in a sideways glance. "'Course it don't help dat dey refuse to admit their machines are too messed up t'use." He mumbled.

The older man pried, leaning forward on the table. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.

"Well, I suppose that if you really want to know what's goin' on, I'll have ta start at da beginning." He made sure he had their attention before starting. "Y'see, it all started awhile's back; when we first got BetaMax—jus' before I was workin' here. It went sorta like dis…"

---

"Toji's certainly been in there for a long time," Shinji commented, gazing over toward the glass windowed conference room. The person in question could be seen talking adamantly to the two consultants; both of which seemed surprisingly enthralled by the story.

"Yes, he has." Kaworu stood next to him, sipping his mug of coffee slowly to pass the time.

"I wonder what they're discussing," Kensuke pondered, leaning against the wall as he cracked his neck.

Shinji shrugged. "I don't know. I don't care either." He said. "They've been in there so long that my scheduled meeting has come and gone already—I don't have to see the guys until tomorrow morning! Yes!" He clenched a fist in victory. He sighed in contentment as the thought of procrastination washed over him again.

"Say—" a different thought suddenly occurred to him. "Has anyone seen Rei today? I saw her this morning, but now I can't seem to find—"

Kensuke nodded down the corridor. "Speak of the devil."

"Shinji." The cyan haired young woman stopped several paces from the man in question.

"Hi Rei." He said. "There was something I needed to ask you." She blinked, and he continued. "Can you make up an anti-firewall invasive virus for us?"

"What for?"

"We want to ruin the Management server." He replied. "Meaningless, hateful, spiteful vengeance for things that really weren't so bad."

There was a slight pause for several brief moments before Rei spoke again. "I destroyed my computer today."

"Really?" That threw all of them for a loop—except Kaworu, who just smiled absently and stared at the ceiling. "Why?"

"It was a meaningless, hateful, spiteful act of vengeance for things that really weren't so bad." She quoted. "I was angry."

"Oh."

There was another somewhat misplaced pause.

"So you'll help us?"

She shrugged. "I suppose."

---

"Hey Shig."

"Yo Mak."

"Were we supposed to pick up Maya or something?" His voice was riddled with uncertainty. "I thought she had car trouble."

"Did she call you?"

"Well—no, but…"

Shigeru shrugged. "I don't know man. I had this weird dream that she was in jail for drug trafficking, though."

"Really?" Makoto stopped staring at his computer and looked over at him. "I did too." He scrached his shoulder. "Maybe…" he started, "Maybe it wasn't a dream?"

They looked at each other with odd expressions on their faces, then burst out laughing.

"Maya's a heroin dealer!" Shigeru guffawed. "That'd be the day!"

"Yeah—next thing we know she'll bust in here and kill us all!" Makoto's laughter was as strong as his co-worker's. "Her and a bunch of her 'street buddies'! Hah!"

Their laughter died down after a while, and they returned their gazes to their screens.

"But seriously, where _was_ she today?"


	5. Friday

**Disclaimer: **I don't own NGE. Or RadioShack. Or the Ram's Head Tavern—which, I might add, is a very good place to eat. And I don't own the band Ragnarok, or their song 'Recreation of an Angel' (no pun/reference intended. Heh). And if _Psychiatric Monthly_ really is a magazine, I don't own that either.

**Author's Note: **Well, here it is. The (not-so) Grand Finale and the end of the week—the apex of this pointless story.

I'd like to thank RadioShack™ for coming up with the brilliantly worded and crafted layoff notices to the 400-some employees they blew away. If you followed the headlines on 8/30, you'll get the reference. I mean no disrespect to those who lost their jobs.

And yes, I know you can't mount Molotov on a belt. Just bear with me. It's cooler to say that then to say they've got their arms full of twenty glass bottles with soaked rags jammed in the tops of them.

-----------------------------------------------------

**Chapter 5: Friday**

-----------------------------------------------------

"Mmm, Shinji…" A mature, seductive, tired feminine voice cooed, "That was _wonderful_."

Tired chuckling accompanied it. "Yeah… it was pretty amazing." A pause. "You were amazing, Ritsuko."

"Such flattery…"

A yawn. "Well deserved, tho'."

A brief silence fell about the disheveled room.

"I'll be sore in the morning, you know."

"Was it worth it?"

"Of course…"

"…Doctor?"

"No, Ritsuko right now, Shinji. Just Ritsuko."

"Alright, Ritsuko?"

"Yes?"

"I never got an answer to my question."

"Oh that…" She tiredly sighed. "Sex. Or alcohol. Cover your emotional instability with something that society considers ugly, and make sure you feel good about it."

"What?"

"When you're feeling depressed, go to a store, buy booze, and drink your troubles into submission. Or find a brothel and pay through the nose for a rough night of promiscuous activities. Or go to a bar, buy a couple drinks for a girl, and get both." Ritsuko sighed, cracking her neck by accident. "Look, it doesn't really matter." She said. "It was clinically proven that successfully lying to yourself through means most consider to be 'unsavory', you'll feel good."

"Would I?" A pause. "I thought that just masked the truth from myself… that's not good either, right?"

"Sure it is." She replied, ambivalently. "If you convolute your mind to the point that you can't see the truth anymore, you'll be so numb it won't make a difference. Ignorance can be bliss, you know."

"This is your professional opinion?"

"Yep."

"…Where'd you come up with it?"

She shrugged. "I read of the theory in _Psychiatric Monthly_—I've got a subscription. A bunch of snobbish shrinks think it's the answer to all of mankind's problems; self induced delirium." The sound of a Zippo heralded the lit cigarette she placed in her mouth. "They call the theory 'Instrumentality'."

"Sounds sort of… _irresponsible_." Shinji stated. "Like you're just turning your back to the truth."

Ritsuko shrugged again. "Yeah, yeah…" she said. "But hey, what makes you feel good… feels good. Why turn your back on that?"

Shinji frowned.

She continued: "What's a little delusion when I'm happy?"

-----------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY; 7:32 AM

**IKARI RESIDENCE**

---

"It's Friday."

Shinji stared at the stucco ceiling of his bedroom, stating the completely redundant statement to no one in particular.

"The virus should be ready today." He smirked as evilly as his groggy, pre-breakfast, pre-shower state would let him.

Then he got out of bed.

-----------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY; 8:44 AM

**RUSH HOUR**

---

"I'd hate to have that job." Kensuke stared at the construction workers by the side of the road.

Toji nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's gotta suck. I don't think I could handle it, man."

"Neither could I." He replied. "The weather could be a pain, especially since they're working around really hot macadam and stuff. That's not even mentioning the crazy drivers on the roads these days."

They were silent for a while as the traffic continued to stay where it was.

Kensuke sighed as he shifted in the driver's seat. "Do you know what these guys are doing here?"

"Nah, man." Toji shrugged, shaking his head. "Jus' go with da flow, ya know?"

---

"I saw a movie last night." Makoto decided that the awkward silence in the car had gotten to the breaking point. The car wasn't moving, and the driver seemed to be growing more and more impatient with each passing second. Makoto figured it would be best to divert his mind for a while.

"Did you?"

"Yep." Makoto continued. "It presented a very interesting question." Shigeru turned to him, but didn't respond. After a pause, Makoto continued. "There was this guy, and he told this other guy—this kid, really—he asked him, 'why do hot dogs come in packages of eight, while the buns come in packages of six?'"

Shigeru blinked, then shrugged. "Alright. So?"

"Well, it got me thinking. What if the hotdog companies and the hotdog bun companies were actually all part of one huge conglomerate that really managed them all? Then, with hotdogs coming in eights, and the buns coming in sixes, a guy wanting a decent cookout would need to buy a preposterous amount of each to get an even amount of both." A smile tugged at his lips. "It's like a monopoly—a _conspiracy_, even—against the public to buy more products than they really need. We're getting cheated out of cash because of the corporate world!"

Shigeru frowned. "I think you're looking at the question too literally." He scratched his neck as he stared back at the unmoving traffic. "I think the question was meant as a basic comment on society—a statement made to make the other guy realize something." He shrugged. "But I don't know. You took it out of context."

Makoto nodded. "That could be true," he started. "That could be true, but what if he was trying to make the guy realize that he was controlled by the corporate system of lies and deceit!"

Shigeru sighed and hung his head. "Was this movie _Bulletproof Monk_?"

"What?" Makoto scrunched his eyebrows. "Yeah, it was. Why?"

"Mak," started Shigeru, "The point to the statement was to show that life didn't work out as everyone hoped it would. But in the end, you get what you need."

"Really?"

"Yeah—he said so at the end of the film."

"Oh." Makoto looked down at his hands. "Maybe he did." He looked out the window, but turned back. "Regardless. My point still stands."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Shigeru said. "We're all caught up in the corporate marketing trap—the same trap that forces all coffeemakers and toasters to be the same, and fail the same way. It's called commercialism, pal."

"Say, how _was_ the coffeemaker this morning?" He looked back at him.

Shigeru shook his head and closed his eyes, breathing out an exhausted sigh.

-----------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY; 9:33 AM

**THE OFFICE**

---

"You're here late, Shinji." Kaworu gazed at him as he approached the coffeemaker.

He shrugged. "Yeah, there was construction on the bridge—didn't you hit it?"

Kaworu shook his head. "No, I live on the other side of the bridge."

"Hey guys," Kensuke tiredly walked into the kitchen, and glared at the coffee machine before opening the refrigerator and pulling out a Dr. Pepper.

"What, no coffee this morning, Kensuke?"

"I'm done with that mechanical wreckage." He replied, twisting the top off of the can. "The only person it actually makes coffee for is Kaworu anyhow."

Shinji frowned. "Actually, I've gotten coffee out of it."

Toji walked in. "Yeah, me too." He paused, and thought as he leaned against the door frame. "And I'm pretty sure Ayanami's gotten coffee outta it, too."

Kensuke blinked. "Then—wait, so you're saying that it'll make coffee for everyone in the office except _me_?"

Everyone was silent for a moment, before they started nodding.

"Yeah, pretty much." Toji nodded.

"I give up." Kensuke threw his hands up in the air, and stalked out of the kitchen. "I'm done."

---

"According to this," the head supervisor glared down at the report in front of her. "You want me to lay off my entire engineering department in favor of vending machines."

"Actually, that's just a comparison." Gendo stood erect at the other end of the mahogany desk. "Vending machines would be more cost-efficient."

"Uh huh," Yui blinked, shifting the papers around on her desk. "But you still believe that it is necessary to fire them all?"

"That's correct." His gloved hand covered his face as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "We have done studies and believe that it would be most cost efficient for you to outsource your entire engineering department to India."

"But I thought you wanted to interview everyone before you made any decision."

"Judging from the fifty percent that we _have_ interviewed," he took a briefly impatient breath. "We found the following results—if you turn to page fifty-three." She turned to page fifty-three as he said so. "We concluded that there was only one person who actually did the work that your company statement claimed."

"And he is…?"

"Toji Suzaharra."

Fuyutsuki cut in, "He's the only one qualified for database work."

"Then what do the rest of them do?"

Gendo shook his head as he approached the desk. "Mostly miscellaneous programming or secretarial tasks." He paused, taking another breath. "The problem, we believe, is in the management."

Yui looked back at the desk, and the papers. "So you're saying that my management his having my engineers do tasks that don't correspond to the company statement? We're not doing what the company is _supposed _to be doing?"

Gendo's face remained stoic. "Correct."

"Well," Fuyutsuki took a glance at his pupil as he interjected his own thoughts. "The company handbook is severely convoluted and almost five hundred pages long. It's a tome that you distribute to your employees, but not one of them has ever really read it. They know about as much about what the company does as you do."

Yui nodded, adding to herself, "Which is close to nothing."

Gendo nodded. "Precisely."

Fuyutsuki added, "Most of your employees are under the impression that Nerv Technologies, Incorporated is some sort of freelance programming conglomerate."

Yui sighed and sat back at her desk, shaking her head in disbelief. "So basically, I need to hire new managers, rewrite the company handbook, and lay off my engineering department in favor of a bunch of underpaid Indians."

"That would be the most efficient thing to do, yes."

She sighed again, then spotted a separate piece of paper on her desk. She picked it up. "What's this?"

"That's our bill." Gendo stated.

"…That's a lot of zeroes."

---

The layoff notices to the engineering staff were sent out almost immediately via e-mail. They looked like this:

THE WORK FORCE REDUCTION NOTIFICATION IS CURRENTLY IN PROCESS. UNFORTUNATELY, YOUR POSITION IS ONE THAT HAS BEEN ELIMINATED.

YOU ARE MORE EXPENSIVE THAN SOMEONE OVERSEAS.

---

"So that's it?" Kensuke stared at his screen for a few minutes. "We get a three-lined message telling us we're toast, and a fifty paragraph legal spiel about how we can't sue for compensation?"

Toji looked over his friend's shoulder as he read the message. "Looks dat way."

"Well ain't that a bitch."

-----------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY; 12:14 PM

**RAM'S HEAD TAVERN**

---

"I don't believe I've ever eaten here before." Kaworu gazed up at the wooden trusses that bridged the open ceiling.

Shinji shrugged. "Yeah, neither have I." He scratched the back of his neck as he looked across the room toward the bar. "Nice place, though."

Toji and Kensuke remained silent, drawing the other two into an awkward pause.

Shinji tinkered with the salt shaker, starting to get uncomfortable with the heavy tension in the air. "So," he started. "Certainly is a hell of a way to go."

"What do you mean?" Kensuke glanced up from the tablecloth.

"Well, I don't know," he said. "Just the whole e-mail notification of layoff thing. It's like they don't feel the need to formally inform us of our job's termination, so they just make a bot hand out the digital pink slips. It's really insulting."

"Yeah… helluva way to go, alright." Toji repeated him. "Man, dis sucks. Now I need to really get my act together an' update my résumé."

"And that's bad?" Kensuke shot a glance at him, raising an eyebrow.

He shook his head. "Well, no, but it certainly is tedious." He said.

Shinji suddenly put his salt shaker down. "Hey guys, do we have our virus ready yet?"

Kaworu nodded quietly. "Rei's already got my plans, and I think she's been working on the invasion bug this morning."

"But her computer fried."

He shrugged. "I think she brought her personal laptop."

Shinji just went with it. "Alright," he looked over at Kensuke, "What about your anti-utility gizmo?"

"I ran into some kinks, but I'm sure it'll be fine." He said, waving a hand. "I just need to piggyback it on Rei's invasive program."

Toji just smirked; a clear sign that he was ready for the show.

"Well, since we've got nothing to loose, we may as well just go all the way." Shinji replied. "All we need to do is wait for Rei, and we've got all the pieces together."

---

"I have a bad feeling about today." Back at the office, Makoto stared at his computer screen.

"You have a bad feeling every day of the week." Shigeru stated.

"Yeah, but this is different."

"Like yesterday?"

"No," Makoto shook his head, wiping a droplet of sweat out of his left eye. "No, this is far more of a bad feeling. It feels as though we forgot about something important, so it's going to come back and haunt us today."

Shigeru shrugged. "I'm sure we'll be fine."

---------------------------------------------------------

FRIDAY; 3:33 PM

**THE OFFICE**

---

Shinji stared at the disk in his hands. "So."

"So." Kensuke stared at it as well, just as Kaworu, Rei, and Toji arrived.

"This is it." Everyone nodded.

"Toji,"

"Yeah?"

"This has got the music bug, right?"

"Yep."

"Rei,"

"Yes?"

"You've got the firewall breacher and invasive bug on here as well?"

"Yes."

"And it's designed off of your maps, Kaworu?"

"Indeed it is."

"And you've finished work on the utilities gizmo and uploaded it on here, right Kensuke?"

"Yeah."

Shinji took a breath, never letting his eyes leave the small diskette in his hand. "Well," he started, "let's do this thing."

Everyone watched as he settled down behind the one of the few remaining operational computers on the floor, and slid the square of plastic into the appropriate slot.

INITIATE OPERATION ARMEGGEDON? Y/N

Shinji scrunched his eyebrows together, and looked up at Kensuke.

"Armageddon?" he asked, incredulously.

Kensuke shrugged indignantly. "We had to call it something, right?" he said. "I just thought the word 'Armageddon' sounded cool."

Shinji shrugged, and turned back to the screen.

Y

They all blinked.

"Dat's it?"

Kaworu sighed. "Yeah, sort of anti-climactic, isn't it?"

Rei didn't say anything.

Shinji looked back at the keyboard. "Oh wait; I need to press enter."

"Idiot."

Just as Shinji's finger closed in on the return key, something happened which no one could have ever expected. Before he could initiate their anti-management revenge, the Gates of Hell literally flew off their hinges and careened several feet into the office. Flames leapt through the open doorway for a brief instant, signaling the explosives which had been used as the door breach. Three figures stood silhouetted against the light streaming in, their bodies and faces wreathed in the clearing smoke.

As the wispy strands of grey sight deterrent cleared, the assailants were immediately spotted. Two rather large and quite obviously powerful black men stood behind a smaller, otherwise demure young woman. Her deep brown, almost black hair had been tied back in a do rag, a black leather jacket covering most of her upper torso down to the skin-tight leather pants that came to her waist. Her eyes burned with an enflamed ambition that few could place.

She screamed: "_BASTARDS!"_

Everyone failed to notice the two Mac-11s she held in her hands until it was too late to do anything about it. Behind her, the cohorts started to light the first of an impressive stash of belt-mounted Molotov cocktails, tossing them toward the glass-lined offices in the back of the room. Fire streaked up the walls as the liquid embers flowed, quickly turning the seconds-prior peaceful office into an inferno of burning chaos and leaded death.

"Jezus H. Christ," Kensuke breathed. "It's that chick from Marketing. She's gone postal."

"Nah, I think she was transferred." Shinji whispered to him. "Tech division or something."

"Regardless," Kensuke replied quietly. "She's still gone postal.

Toji shook his head and sighed in mock contentment as he pulled his hands behind his neck to cradle his head. "Jus' like I figured."

Shinji looked down at the screen again.

INITIATE OPERATION ARMAGEDDON? Y/N

Y

…And he hit the return key.

Immediately, music came blaring over the speakers, the insanely heavy beats of Ragnarok's "Recreation of the Angel" at 150 plus decibels, forcing everyone to cover their ears.

But that didn't stop the maelstrom of fiery death. If anything, it further encouraged the lethal trio, as they practically flew through the cubicle-walled corridors of the engineering department, burning and shooting everything and anything that moved.

Minutes later, the building violently shook as the boiler exploded in the basement, shooting a column of fire upwards into the first floor and taking out several key structural supports. The first floor was succinctly eliminated from existence in a fiery inferno, just as several key points in the second floor—notably the engineering department—swiftly collapsed downwards.

"Goddamn!" Shinji braced himself against the desk as the other side of the department fell through into the first floor, shaking the entire level. "Did we do that?"

Kensuke cringed. "I think… I think that may have been me."

"_What?_"

"Well—I don't think it was, but it might've been." He said, haltingly. "It—the server—it's weird. I programmed the virus gizmo to just wreak havoc and tamper with everything it could touch—to basically just fuck up their system real bad." He scratched his neck as a neighboring cubicle dramatically caught fire and the music overhead changed to the next equally explosive track. He looked at the others rather sheepishly. "A bit much, huh?"

Then their cubicle wall was sent ablaze. It was wordlessly decided that between the growing office inferno, the collapsing and growingly unstable floor, and the enraged inner-city gangster trio, the best chances of survival were to escape through one of the various broken windows which lined the side of the building.

Shinji and his cohorts in conspiracy were only spared from a horrid death of intense heat and flame by the tree that grew right next to the office. Since several windows had been shot out by the deranged marketer and her friends in felony, it didn't take too much to jump into the branches of the middle aged maple. Granted, it didn't exactly accept these flying people with open branches, but getting a few dozen bruises and cuts on one's way downward was much more preferred than burning alive in the inferno that had engulfed the first floor.

It was only a matter of time before the firemen arrived. It took even less time for the SWAT to get there.

---------------------------------------------------------

**IKARI RESIDENCE**

5:38 PM

---

"Wow."

"Wow,"

"Yeah, wow."

Miraculously, all of Shinji's coworkers had survived the trip through the Maple tree somewhat unscathed. A bunch of nasty cuts and bruises were clearly seen, but no one had any serious injuries.

As for the rest of the office…

"I feel sorry for the rest of them," Kaworu suddenly piped up.

"Yeah," Kensuke agreed. "I don't think they deserved to die, but… well, what could we do about it?"

Toji shrugged. "I remember overhearin' dose two marketing geeks say somethin' about dat Maya chick bein' in jail for somethin' or other."

"Hmm," Kaworu made a thoughtful noise. "Maybe she expected them to bail her out."

"And when they didn't, she went berserk and slaughtered everyone?" Shinji raised an unbelieving eyebrow. "I think it was more than that."

"She might have been on some sort of medication and just… not taken it or something." Kensuke offered.

"I dunno, man." Toji said. "I don' really care, either. We're here, dat company's finished, and we all need new jobs."

Kensuke chuckled a little. "I wouldn't worry about that, Toji. Jet Alone is looking for new employees anyhow. With résumés like ours, we could get jobs pretty much anywhere."

Toji was about to reply, but a knocking from the front door distracted everyone's thoughts.

Shinji stood to get the door.

"Hey man!" Kaji stood in the doorway, flanked by both Ritsuko and Misato. "I heard what happened up at the office. Sorry to hear that 'n all. But hey, let's mourn another time and party today!"

"Kaji?" Shinji stood back and let the newcomers enter. "What—"

He was cut off as the pony tailed man held up a cardboard box. "I've got Twister!"

Moments later, several pizza delivery boxes were strewn about the apartment, the heavy tunes of Opeth pouring out of the stereo, a dozen or so cans of numerous different beer and soft drink labels perched on the coffee table, and a mesh of entangled limbs and multicolored hair were all laughing and yelling in enjoyment on a plastic, dotted mat.

END (but not really).

---------------------------------------------------------

**EPILOGUE**

---

Shinji stood in the doorway to the long-since condemned building of Nerv Technologies, Inc. There wasn't much left of it now, just the charred remains of a gutted structure, now just an open, leaky formation of concrete that once used to house another corporate enterprise.

The two ex-Marketers that Shinji had had a loose acquaintanceship with were eventually found by the authorities, but it seemed that the enraged, trigger-happy officemate's bullets had gotten to their bodies before the cops did. They were pronounced DOA by the time the paramedics had gotten to the building. Shinji had thought that Toji said it best when he heard the news; "Oh well. You win some, you loose some."

Most everyone who had survived the 'Nerv Incident', as it was now called, had been hired by their fiercest competitor, Jet Alone Services, Ltd.—the company whose building was literally a stone's throw away from where Nerv once stood in the business plaza. Their pay was still the same, and they still didn't know what the overall purpose to the company was, but they at least had running computers with functioning, compatible operating systems.

Kaworu had said that human beings despised change. It certainly seemed to be true, since there hadn't been much of a difference between Nerv Technologies and Jet Alone Services. The management technique was the same, the building's layout was essentially the same, and everyone still did the same work.

As Shinji surveyed the wreckage of a past life, he came to the same conclusion he always did: nothing had changed.

He shrugged. Well, one thing _had_ changed. Soryu had moved to Germany, and had stopped bothering him when she realized it was a futile effort. Rei had eventually moved in with him, and they had formed a stable relationship which wasn't founded on sex or abuse or domination. Well, maybe it was founded partially on sex, but there was more to it than that.

Shinji sighed as he started to turn from the abandoned, condemned entryway. As he started to leave, his foot hit something on the ground, causing him to trip out of surprise. Looking down, he examined the piece of rubble, recognizing it only when he picked it up.

"Huh," he said to no one in particular. "I wondered where my stapler disappeared to."

**END**

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**Author's Note:** I'd like to point out that this story was completely pointless. To summarize all eighty or ninety some pages: after four guys have their computer systems crash for good, they pass their time with pointless conversations and a rather mundane revenge conspiracy, only to have a random factor disrupt everything and destroy the company anyhow.

I'd like to thank my readers, my reviewers, and anyone else who think they deserve thanks—for whatever reason.

So thanks.


End file.
